This morning at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, with a solemn mass officiated by Monsignor Santo Marcianò, military officer for Italy, the Navy and the National Fire Brigade have celebrated their patron saint, Santa Barbara.
A celebration for the first time joint, open to all citizens and accompanied by the notes of the Navy Band, which saw the participation of many civil and military authorities, together with the staff in service and on leave and the fighting associations and weapon.
Chosen because it represents the serenity of the sacrifice in the face of danger without the possibility of avoiding it, Santa Barbara was elected a patron "of those who are in danger of sudden death". The story tells that Barbara of Nicomedia in Bithynia, an ancient region of Asia Minor today Turkey, was locked up in a tower and then taken to martyrdom for her indomitable Christian faith opposed by the pagan father Dioscorus, who "at the four of the month of December he was incinerated by a celestial lightning, a symbol of immediate death without the possibility of redeeming himself"The martyr, in the imminent supreme sacrifice, prayed to Jesus:"... Please pray my Lord Jesus, if any person to your laude will remember me and my martyrdom, ... send them mercy for your mercy"From this the intense interweaving that binds the saint to the navy men: immediately after the invention of gunpowder, each munitions warehouse, especially on warships, for devotion to the virgin of Nicomedia, has always attacked walls an image of him, so that it is preserved by fire and lightning.
Several celebrations took place this morning in some Italian cities including Genoa, where Cardinal Bagnasco honored the anniversary in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, as well as on board the ships and at the Navy's agencies and commands.
(Photo: Marina Military)
