The Association of Maria Santissima del Tindari will again take to the streets of Fremantle on Sunday, September 9, for their annual procession and religious festival.
Many people are expected to take part in the procession and festivities in a colourful display of faith and devotion to the Black Madonna.
The secretary of the association, Mr Joe Franchina said festivities would begin with a Solemn Triduum at the Basilica Saint Patrick on Thursday, September 6 to Saturday, September 8, at 7.30pm.
On Sunday, September 9 at 9.45am there will be a Concelebrated Solemn Mass presided by Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey.
The procession will leave the Basilica on Sunday at 2pm. The statue of the Black Madonna will be carried through the streets to the Esplanade, where there will be a brief pause for a daytime fireworks display.
At the conclusion of the fireworks, the procession will return to the Basilica for Benediction.
Mr Franchina said that according to the popular legend, which had been passed through the ages, the Black Madonna arrived in the small Sicilian town of Tindari through miraculous circumstances, after a merchant ship sailing from the east sought shelter in the bay of Tindari because of a storm, in 726AD.
When the storm had finished, the small ship could not set sail again towards its destination, until the crew left behind a chest containing the statue of the Black Madonna, which the locals housed in a small temple.
“It was the devotion and determination of the association’s President – Andrea Pellegrino and above all, the faith of our community in Fremantle,” Mr Franchina told The Record, “another statue of the Black Madonna was commissioned and produced in Fremantle in 1996, exactly 1270 years later”.
The statue was housed at Saint Patrick’s, and religious celebrations are held every year during the second week in September, culminating in Mass and procession.