Two angels, Maria Voight, 7, (right) of Glenview in pink and Micaella Gennett Camerada, 8, of Westchester are suspended high above the crowd and a monument to the Blessed Mother Mary singing religious songs in Italian in a tradition called the Flight of the Angels at the 115th festival honoring Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Milicia.
Golf Mill Park in Niles will again serve as the site of the Feast of Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Milicana in Chicago over Labor Day weekend, an event part Catholic religious observance and part street festival dating back to the year 1623 in Sicily.
The festival was brought to Chicago in 1900 by Sicilian immigrants who have celebrated it every year since except 2020 when it, like many other events, was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was held in Chicago and several suburbs, including 20 years in Berwyn before the festival came to Golf Mill Park in Niles in 2015.
A dove released at the opening of the Procession of the Vera through at the Maria SS Lauretana festival in Niles, returns to perch before the venerated image of the “Blessed Mother” (Mary). (Tom Robb/Journal photo)
This year’s festival will see performances by contemporary music acts and Italian crooners, food, carnival games, and carnival rides, but what sets it apart are religious observances held on Saturday night and Sunday.
The legend of the Feast of Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Milicia says that in the year 1623, a ship of heathen pirates was sailing in heavy storms off the coast of Sicily near the town of Altavilla Milicia. The pirates found the lid of a barrel emblazoned with the image of the Virgin Mary. The pirates blamed the storm and their troubles on the barrel lid, so they threw it overboard.
The lid washed up on the Sicilian coast between two towns. The townspeople recognized this as a miracle. The townspeople placed the lid on an ox cart without a driver. Officials from the two towns decided that wherever the ox pulling the cart stopped would be the site of a shrine they would build.
The ox cart brought the lid to the town of Altavilla Milicia, where a shrine to Mary was built and still stands. The Feast of Maria SS Lauretana continues to be celebrated each year in the Sicilian town of Altavilla Milicia.
Religious events at the Feast of Our Lady of Maria SS Lauretana retell that story.
Miss Columbus Day Queen Sofia Console (left), and members of her court, Isabella Rosina (center) and Katrina Giannoni (right) ride on the carro, a replica ship on wheels pulled through the festival grounds at the 2022 Feast of Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Micilla in Golf Mill Park. (Tom Robb/Journal photo)
Saturday night will see the Carro and Torch Parade. A group of men clad in white pants and shirts with maroon smocks and maroon head scarves, called the “fratelanza”, pull a tall boat on wheels called the “carro”, filled with VIP guests, using ropes through the festival grounds.
Sunday starts at 9 a.m. with a candlelight procession followed by a 10 a.m. Mass before the festival opens at 11:30 a.m.
In the early afternoon Sunday, the men of the fratelanza will take a portrait of “the Blessed Mother” (Mary) from a tent where the faithful come to say devotions. Four young girls, two dressed as blue angels and two dressed as pink angels, stand in front of the portrait to sing a song of devotion before the men of the fratelanza carry a smaller monument and place it atop a two-ton shrine called the “vera”.
Members of the Fratellanza watch as a smaller section of the vera, a shrine to the Virgin Mary, is attached to the lower base at Sunday’s 121st annual Feast of Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Milica in Chicago festival in Golf Mill Park in Niles. The men of the Fratellanza then hoist the 4,000 lb. shrine on their shoulders carrying it around the festival grounds. (Tom Robb/Journal photo)
The vera is similar to an Egyptian ladder used by the pharaohs, with two long wooden arms extending behind it and two arms in front.
The fratelanza collectively lift the vera, using those wooden arms, carrying it for short distances through the fairgrounds, stopping periodically to allow the faithful to climb another ladder to kiss the image of Mary and leave a donation.
After carrying the vera through the festival grounds, the vera is placed between two tall scaffolds. Two angels, one pink and one blue, are tied at the waist and ankles to a pulley system above the vera. They are flown out over the vera about 30 feet in the air, throwing rose petals before a microphone is raised, and the angels sing a song of devotion to Mary. The Flight of the Angels takes place twice during the festival, once at about 5 p.m. and once at about 8 p.m. on Sunday.
Secular music at the feast includes singer Jack Miuccio and classic rock band Infinity on Friday, School of Rock, singers Vince Amore and Mario DeLaurenti, and the headliner, Chicago’s Own Piano Man, on Saturday. Sunday will see singers Gabriela Rago, opera tenor Benjamin De Los Monteros, and singers Mia Rago and Tony Spavone. Sunday night wraps up with a 9 p.m. fireworks display after the second Flight of the Angels.
Elena Santos, 10 (left), and Angelina Parilon, 9 (right), both of Chicago, fly in over the crowd and the vera, a two-ton shrine to the Virgin Mary, directed by Joe Camarda, president of the Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Milicia in Chicago, during the Flight of the Angels at
at the Feast of Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Milicia at Golf Mill Park in Niles. The Sicilian Catholic tradition dates back to the year 1900 in Chicago and to the early 1620s in Sicily. (Tom Robb/Journal photo)
A group of 40 to 50 men, all members of the Fratellanza Brotherhood, clad in white and maroon, lift the two-ton Vera shrine holding a sacred image of the Virgin Mary at the Maria SS Lauretana Festival in Niles Sunday. Their labor is a sign of sacrifice and devotion to their faith.
A dove is released after four young girls dressed as angels sing a song of devotion in front of a shrine to Maria SS Lauretana of Altavilla Milicia, a replica of a religious relic in Altavilla Milicia, Sicily, during the four-day Maria SS Lauretana Festival in Golf Mill Park. (Tom Robb/Journal photo)
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