The celebration of Easter in Sicily

Easter for Sicilians represents a very important festivity, religious of course, but above all a way to spend time with family and friends. The ways Sicilians celebrate the religious festivity are quite diverse from an extremity to the other of the island, however here we will try to summarise the most important and  peculiar aspects.

For the religious, it all starts on the Sunday of the week before, in other words, the procession of the Palm Sunday, which is shared and celebrated in the same way in every part of Sicily and also in the rest of Italy, although in the island it is carried out with great significance and emphasis. During the procession, in almost all the villages of Sicily, olive twigs and also palm leaves are usually artistically intertwined in traditional forms and generally carried by children. Caltanissetta and Enna seem to be the cities where the event also develops during the following days and they are the centre of many peculiars religious traditions and processions.

On the Holy Thursday, people generally go to the mass for the “Coena Domini”, remembering Christ and his Apostols’ Ultima Cena (The Last Supper) and their Holy Communion. Right on Thursday, all the churches stay open from the afternoon until late in the night in order to allow the worshippers to visit the altars decorated with flowers, bowls full of wheat sprouts and seeds. This day is particularly famous and deeply celebrated in Caltanissetta.

On the Holy Friday, the altars are to welcome the consecrated hosts and it is characterized by the procession of the Dead Christ. The procession is generally characterized by the presence not only of the Crucifix or of the dead Christ lying on a litter or in a glass urn (“cataletto“), but also of the “Mysteries” such as the Ecce Homo, and of the statue of The Addolorata.

However during the most important day, Easter Sunday, after the most important mass, we all gather for lunch and guess what, one of our best way to celebrate is eating! Tables are filled up with pizza, sfincione (our soft pizza with tomato sauce, onions, caciocavallo cheese and anchovies) even if a more formal tradition call for the preparation of pasta al forno and lamb baked with potatoes. But most important, sweets can’t be missed! You will surely find Cassata even in two different versions  – the classic and the baked one – and the Pecorella, an almond paste sweet in a sheep-shape which many times is prepared with much love by our grannies. Moreover the Cuddura cu l’ova – so called in the Eastern area, but also called pani cu’ l’ova  to the West – is a biscuit with a boiled egg right in the centre.

We can surely feel quite satisfied on Easter day, but… do you really think that’s all?! We keep on celebrating the day after, Easter Monday, or as we call it Pasquetta. On this day people set up the “carbonella” (our way to do barbecue!). This festivity, like Easter, is celebrated all over Italy.

Simona Lo Piccolo