“These are the days in which we celebrate Saint Peter, our beloved Patron Saint. And in these days we want to make a journey of faith following in his steps. He was able to leave everything and follow the Master who invited him to become a “fisher of men”. While remaining in his own fragility and human weakness, which led him to deny the Lord, he nevertheless recognized him as “Christ, the son of the living God”, and, aware of needing the examples and words of Jesus, he confided to him: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have words of eternal life!”; and before separating from the Master he declares all his love for him: “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you”. Peter resembles us in our outbursts of faith as well as in our human weaknesses, in his desire to follow the Lord and in his desire to give him all the love of which he is capable. May He, Patron of our city of Modica and holder of the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, open to each of us the treasures of the heart of Christ and teach us the way that leads to Him.”
This is what the parish priest of the Mother Church, the priest Giuseppe Stella, states in addressing the faithful at the start of the celebrations which began yesterday with the solemn translation of the simulacrum of Saint Peter and the paralytic of Civiletti from his altar to the nave for the veneration of the faithful. Tomorrow, at 7pm, the neighborhood masses that characterized the previous edition of the festival return. Tomorrow, in particular, the Eucharistic celebration will be held in via Exaudinos. Then on Thursday, at 8.30, there will be the Eucharistic celebration in the liturgical memory of Saint Anthony of Padua, with blessing of the bread. The new neighborhood mass is scheduled for Friday at 7pm at the Paternò family at Palazzo Belluardo, Corso Umberto I n.8, stairway A. To guarantee media support for the expected celebrations, Ragusa provincial Confcommercio chaired by Gianluca Manenti with Modica sectional Confcommercio chaired by Giorgio Moncada. “For the city of Modica – they say in unison – these are days of celebration that have their roots in a consolidated tradition. Days in which even the commercial operators of the area want to bet on how to best welcome the visitors and faithful who are expected during this period. An identity celebration that has just started which allows the people of Modica to feel an integral part of a specific path aimed at exalting the figure of Saint Peter the Apostle”.
