Saint Rita of Cascia Festival

A devotion growing at the foot of Mount Etna

The Saint Rita of Cascia Festival is one of the most heartfelt religious events in San Giovanni la Punta, a town in the province of Catania nestled on the southern slopes of Mount Etna. Celebrated every year on May 22nd, the day the Church remembers the saint from Cascia, the festival bears witness to a devotion that has grown over time, involving the entire local community.

The Mother Church and the cult of Saint Rita

The heart of the celebrations is the Mother Church of San Giovanni Battista, an imposing neoclassical building with three naves that dominates Piazza Lucia Mangano and boasts one of the tallest bell towers in Sicily. Inside, the left chapel is entirely dedicated to Saint Rita of Cascia: it houses a fine statue of the saint, adorned with golden elements, at the base of which is a reliquary containing a part of the knee of the saint of the impossible.

The day's program

The festival is structured into a single, intense day of faith and tradition:

• Liturgical celebrations held throughout the morning, with the traditional blessing of the roses at the end of every Holy Mass, the symbolic flower of devotion to Saint Rita;
• Procession of the statue of Saint Rita, which leaves the Mother Church and travels through the main streets of the town;
• Blessing of vehicles in the municipal parking lot adjacent to the church, a moment highly attended by the faithful;
• Fireworks display which, upon the return of the procession, closes the day of festivities.

An all-female committee

The organization of the festival has been entrusted for years to a committee composed exclusively of women devoted to the saint, a tangible sign of a deep bond between the figure of Rita of Cascia — wife, mother, and religious woman — and the feminine sensitivity of the local community.

Saint Rita in Sicily

On May 22nd, Saint Rita of Cascia is celebrated in numerous towns across Sicily, but in San Giovanni la Punta, the occasion takes on a particularly intimate and popular character, deeply rooted in the town's fabric. The blessing of the roses and the vehicles make this festival a moment of strong community gathering for the Municipality of San Giovanni la Punta and for the entire metropolitan area of Catania.