Here is an idea to recharge your body and soul in ancient and suggestive Sicily

There are some enchanting places, Italy is particularly rich in them, where it is possible to recharge, for the benefit of our body and our spirit.

Summer calls us to stop and regenerate ourselves, both for our physical and mental well-being, but also for that of our soul.

Whoever seeks peace finds it

A moment away from the chaos of our cities and our daily lives: what each of us desires, at least for a few days. Being in full contemplation of the beauty of creationto give that right breath and that peace that we would like to have.

Summer is the right season to do this and, for this reason, we have decided to offer you places that can be defined as both tourist (from a historical and artistic point of view), but also spiritual. Because not only the body needs to restbut also the soul.

In the mountains, in the hills or at the sea: anywhere as long as they allow us to experience closeness with God and be away from distractions of any kind.

The Convent Sanctuary of Maria Santissima of Gibilmanna in Cefalù

The sanctuary of Gibilmanna, dedicated to the Holy Virgin, is a place of worship in the city of Palermo, located in Gibilmanna, a hamlet of the Municipality of Cefalù. It is located 800 meters above sea level, on the western slopes of the top of the Madonie.

Immersed in the green of the mountains, from its position at the top, it is possible to have the vision of a breathtaking landscape, where an uncontaminated nature embraces a Sanctuary and a place full of faith. Place of peace, nature and spiritualityin the middle of the short mountain ridge in the northern part of Sicily.

The Sanctuary itself is located on the slopes of Mount Pizzo Sant’Angelo, whose altitude reaches 1080 meters. All this, in the middle of the hamlet of Gibilmanna.

According to tradition, that of Gibilmanna was one of the six Benedictine monasteries which St. Gregory the Great had erected at his own expense, before being elected pope. The feast of the jubilee of San Gregorio in fact included a pilgrimage to the sanctuary and then to the ruins of a destroyed church which was believed to be the original oratory built by the saint in the sixth century.

The convent buildings had to go to ruin in the 9th century, coinciding with the arrival of the Arabs, while the small church was probably in the custody of several hermits. With the conquest of the Normans, a vast work of reconstruction of monasteries and sacred buildings was started.

The story of the arrival of the statue of Mary

On Easter day 1534, during a sea storm, a boat was transporting a statue of a Madonna and Child found shelter in the medieval village of Roccella Castle.

It seems that the Madonna, who appeared in a dream to a Capuchin friar who lived in Gibilmanna, invited him to go and get one of the statues that had landed, to lead it to their little church. The statue was loaded onto an ox cart, which left free, after days of travel stopped on the promontory overlooking Cefalù, where the current Sanctuary of Maria SS. by Gibilmanna.

In 1535 Father Sebastiano Majo da Gratteri, one of the first followers of the Capuchin reform, settled in Gibilmanna, thus obtaining the faculty to refound the church and the convent. The venerated image of the Madonna was transferred to the new church with Child, a Byzantine-style fresco of the ancient Benedictine chapel, which was detached and inserted into the wall of the chapel of the Madonna.

In 1954 Pope Pius XII declared Maria Santissima of Gibilmanna patroness of the diocese and of the city of Cefalù.

A devotion that has lasted for centuries

Today, in this place, pilgrims are also welcomed for days of prayer and retreats, meetings for children, but above all for prayer in front of the sacred image of Mary whose cult, as we have seen, has been handed down for centuries.

A place, even if close to the city, but which allows us not only to rest, but also to “recharge” our soul with the presence of God.