Entering Garibaldi Gate, or the Sea Gate (one
of the four ancient gates of Marsala), the first church you can
meet with is the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sorrow. |
Though the church is small, it is the most frequented by Marsala people and destination of many pilgrimages. The history of this church is rather miraculous. Near the arch of the Sea Gate (Porta di Mare), there was located a chapel with a statue consecrarted to the Immaculate Comception and it was frequented by many believers, particularly in cases of calamity. |
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It is said that in 1691, during the winter,
Marsala was ravaged by a terrible storm with thunders and lightnings. |
The people frightened took refuge under the Sea Gate and began to
beseech the Virgin to be saved from the terrible storm. All of a
sudden a lightning with a terrible crash, after grazing many persons
in prayer, struck to death a horse, belonging to a young man who
fatally had stopped to pray the Virgin. People made a great clamour
over it, and from that moment on the Image was called “The
Linghtning Virgin”. |
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On
14 July 1691, the Marsala people, to show their gratefulness to
the Virgin, with the consent of the Town Senate, together with the
offerings collected, decided to build a church on the very place
of the chapel. The new church rose from the restructure of the armony of the neighbouring military quarte; its shape was rectangular, its shape was rectangular, its door was situated in the Sea Gate entrance. |
The
Vigin’s Image was placed on the high altar (at present it
is on the right side Chapel). |
In October 1750, Our Lady of Sorrow Congregation,
founded in 1746 by a priest, Gaspare Rallo, having increased the
number of its members, whit the consent of the Town Senate, moved
from St. John of Rodi’s Church to Our Lawasof Ligthing’s. When Father Giovanni Tommaso Morana(1770) was rector, in consequence of an increased influx of believers, the church had become insufficient and so it was necessary to widen and renew it. |
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