An apparition of the Virgin Mary on horseback

In 1736, the Sacred Congregation of Rites ruled that the feast of Maria Santissima delle Milizie (Our Lady of the Militias, or Our Lady on Horseback), patron saint of the town of Scicli in Sicily, formerly a mobile feast, should be celebrated on the Saturday before Passion Sunday.

According to a widespread tradition, documented by various authors of historical and religious works, a fortnight before Easter in 1091, a confrontation between Roger the Norman and the Saracen emir Belcàne took place on the shore of Scicli, miraculously resolved in favor of the Christians by the intervention of the Virgin Mary, who thus liberated Sicily from Saracen domination.

The Saracen Belcane, whose forces were superior, was about to win until the Virgin miraculously intervened in favor of the Sicilians, appearing on the back of a white horse, amid a cloud of intense blue smoke and with an unsheathed sword! Faced with such an apparition, the Moors fled and Sicily remained Christian.

Since then, every year in Scicli, the memorable battle of 1091 is re-enacted with hundreds of extras and Our Lady of the Militias, the Virgin on Horseback, is carried in triumph and celebrated in a huge popular parade.

Adapted and translated from: www.lasciliainrete.it