On Sunday, September 8, the Association of Maria Santissima del Tindari will celebrate the annual religious festival and procession in Fremantle.
Many people are expected to take part in the procession and festivities through the streets of Fremantle in a colourful display of faith and devotion towards the Black Madonna.
The secretary of the Association Joe Franchina said the festivities will begin with Solemn Triduum at St Patrick’s Basilica on September 5 to 7 commencing at 7.30pm.
On September 8 at 9.45am there will be a concelebrated Solemn Mass presided over by Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey.
The procession will leave the Basilica at 2pm. The statue of our Black Lady will be carried through the streets of Fremantle 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 according to the popular legend, which has 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.
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. The year was 726 AD.
But it was through the devotion and determination of the Association’s president, Andrea Pellegrino and, above all, the faith of the community in Fremantle that another statue of the Black Madonna was commissioned and produced in Fremantle in 1996, exactly 1270 years later.
The statue of Our Lady was placed in the Basilica of St Patrick, and religious celebrations have been held every year during the second week in September, culminating with the Solemn Mass and procession.