Faith Filled Friday: The Dancing of the Giglio

This requires a lot of context.  I’m going to try to give it briefly.  Start with the Italian city of Nola, a city that goes back to (328 BC) before the Romans conquered the Italian peninsula.  It’s a city in the Campagna region of Italy, the region from which I’m from.  Nola today I think would be considered a suburb of Naples. 

Fast forward to 410 AD, where the town of Nola selected a priest by the name of Paulinus to be their bishop.  Paulinus died in 431 AD.  Somewhere in between these years the Goths, a Barbarian tribe, invaded the Italian peninsula.  Men were taken as hostage and slaves.  Legend has it that a particular widow had her only son taken, and Bishop Paulinus offered himself as an exchange for that widow’s son.  It was accepted and for a number of years Paulinus was a slave working farms.  The legend has transformed the barbarian Goths into the “Turks,” probably during the Middle Ages when the Turks raided the Italian coast. 

As a slave Paulinus performed miracles for his masters, and the legend has it the Sultan took notice.  He asked about Paulinus’s background and learned he was a man of stature.  He offered Paulinus his freedom, and Paulinus got the release of all the captured men of Nola.  When he sailed back to Nola, the populace greeted him with swarms of lilies.  Lilies are called giglio in Italian, and so the Feast of the Giglio was started.

At some point the Feast of the Giglio incorporated a carrying a structure that symbolized the Giglio.  I don’t know the process in which this structure grew to be massive, but that is what happened.  It developed into a tradition.  Immigrants from Nola brought this tradition to the United States, and specifically to a region in Brooklyn, New York called Williamsburg.  The feast in Williamsburg has been going on since 1903!

One last thing to understand.  The feast day for St. Paulinus is June 22^nd.  The feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is July 16^th.  Because feast celebrations run a couple of weeks long, the two feasts were merged.  The “Dancing of the Giglio” is performed as part of the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and the devotions that come out of this feast have a Carmelite association.

You can read about the history of the celebration in Williamsburg, here. 

Now this video is going to give you what the feast, the Italian-American tradition, and the Dancing of the Giglio entails.

So here are some raw facts of the Giglio tower.  It’s seventy feet high—that’s six or seven stories.  It weighs eight thousand pounds!  It takes 122 men to lift it, traverse it, and dance it. 

The pastor at our parish on Staten Island, Fr. Eugene of St. Rita Catholic Church, grew up in Williamsburg, and many times has referenced it in his homilies, especially in our celebrations of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.  It never dawned on me the full extent of this tradition.  This mid-July, he arranged for a bus to take a number of us interested to the feast.  We went for the vigil of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, the evening of July 15^th.  I believe this was the first night of the celebration.

First a few pictures.  Here is the Giglio before its initial coming out and dance.  You can see it is taller than the apartment buildings on the street.

Every year there are new decorations and holy images to the Giglio.  Here is some detail to this year’s construction.

Here is the initial coming out.  Enjoy the music!  It’s a mix of Italian and American.

 

Now over the course of the evening, they would slowly take the Giglio up the street in manageable spurts—remember the 122 lifters underneath are each carrying anywhere from 65 to 100 lbs—past Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, up another street, and then return for the night.  Here is another clip.

 

You can hear the captain calling out commands in his Neapolitan dialect. 

Here is a picture of the lifters trying to get into position.

And here is a clip of the lifters and a “dance” from their point of view.

 

Finally inside the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church.

A statue of St. Paulinus.

And on the side of the church, OLMC shrine.

Now you know how Italians get into their feasts.  Plus I didn’t even mention the food.  The zeppole were great!

 

St. Paulinus, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us.

Handmaids and Warriors Newsletter: July 2026

This is Alice’s July newsletter.  I explained Alice’s monthly newsletter here.  This month focuses on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Before the newsletter, let us pray: For Pope Leo XIV

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Hail Mary, full of grace…

Hail Mary, full of grace…

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

 

Handmaids of Mary
    St. Michael’s Warriors

 

                                                                 July 2026 Newsletter

 

“The scapular will be for all the sign of our Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

              ~Pope Pius XII

 

This month on the 16th is the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, when Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock and gave him the brown scapular.

Mt. Carmel is in northern Israel near the city of Haifa.  It is also where Elijah challenged the pagan prophets and revealed the true God (1 Kings 18:16-45).

It is written on the Scapular, “whoever dies while wearing this scapular shall not suffer eternal fire.”

This, the Sabbatine Privilege, was added to the Brown Scapular by Pope John XII, making it an official church belief that Mary will intercede and rescue those who die wearing the Brown Scapular on the first Saturday after their death. 

The Brown Scapular not only spares us the fires of hell, but we will be quickly delivered from purgatory!!!!

Sursum corda. Can we wonder that the church whose mission is to soothe the sorrows of our time is always seeking to lift up our hearts by the treasures we have in the Catholic faith?   One of the means by which the Church enables us to participate in her treasures of grace is with sacramentals.

The Holy Spirit guided me this month to these sacramentals.

1. The Crucifix

One of our most treasured sacramentals is the crucifix.  It is the image of Christ on the cross as the victim for our sins, the price of our redemption.  Meditation on the crucifix is one of the most powerful means of awakening sentiments of sorrow for sin.

The crucifix should be place in a fitting and proper place in the home, where each may glance at it frequently and think, if only for an instant, of the love of Him whom it represents and the instrument of our salvation.  

“O Holy Cross, be my victor over all hostile powers, the remedy for all my ills, my support in my weariness and the guarantee of the resurrection of my body” Amen.

 

2. The Sign of the Cross

For Catholics the sign of the cross is a shield and a safeguard against temptations and dangers that threaten the life of the soul. St Cyril of Jerusalem said that when we make the sign of the cross the demons see it, they are reminded of the crucified, and they take flight and hide themselves and leave us. 

All sacraments are administered with the sign of the cross: in baptism fourteen times, and in the Sacrament of the Sick (Extreme Unction) twelve times.  In the mass no less than 45 times. It occurs with great frequency in the recitation of the Divine Office.  In addition, the Church grants an indulgence of three years as often as one makes the sign of the cross, and, as often as the sign of the cross is made with holy watery, an indulgence of seven years.

 

3. Holy Water

Water was one of the first objects to be blessed by the church for use as a sacramental.

It is the common teaching of theologians that holy water confers actual graces, remits venial sin, and restrains the power of Satan.  It is also an efficacious means for the relief of the souls in purgatory.  As often as we use it devoutly, our good Mother, the church, implores for us aid, consolation, and strength to do good and avoid evil.

Every Christian home should have a holy water font.  These should be placed in convenient places so that holy water may be taken frequently by the members of the family.  May fear of ridicule never deter us from making use of so a means of grace, both for ourselves and our dear ones, and for the faithful departed.

 

Through the sacramentals:

“The lord will grant you love, holy and pure.  You will forget the world’s fears.  Ah much more, the devil too.  Now the demon is manacled today.”

              ~St. Therese of Avila

 

Handmaids of Mary and men of St. Michaels Warriors are called to greater faith in the Blessed Mother, believing that She will defeat the devil and bring unity and peace to our beloved Catholic Church.  All Mary had to do at Cana was mention to Jesus “they have no wine,” and Jesus filled all the water jugs with wine.  Our part is to trust in Her Power.

“Who is She that comes forth as the Dawn…Terrible as an army set in battle array…”

 

Handmaid of the Handmaids,
Alice 

 

Faith Filled Friday: Our Feast of Mt. Carmel, 2025

The actual feast day for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel was Wednesday, July 16^th, but we celebrated it with a Mass, an Italian marching band, a procession, and then a parish BBQ on Sunday the 13^th. 

 

The feast day is a special to the Carmelite Order, commemorating the giving of the brown scapular in 1287 by Our Lady to St. Simon Stock, an English member of the Carmelite Order.  

Our pastor, Fr. Eugene, is also a Third Order Carmelite, and we had many from his chapter at the Mass.  We also had people attend from the Padre Pio Society and of course the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel organization which is located in Brooklyn, NY.  We also had an Italian band.

Fr. Eugene, who is Italian-American, included in his homily a funny little story.  I’ll put this in quotes, but it’s not a direct quote.  He said, “so deep is the Italian devotion to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, that his mother once asked where in Italy is Mt. Carmel located?”  The love of this feast is so pervasive among Italians that his mother assumed the mountain was in Italy.  But it’s not.  It’s in Isarel.

Now back in 2017, I posted that year’s procession with plenty of pictures.  If you want to see stills, go here.  

For this year, I’m going to post three videos from the procession.  First coming out of Church.

 

 

The grand exit of our beloved Lady and being put on the rolling cart.

Viva Maria!

 

And finally the procession.

 

Seminarians and altar servers in the front, banners and flags next, the rolling cart, the band, and finally the parishioners.  That’s Fr. Eugene in his vestments directing the rolling cart.  We processed about two blocks, up an avenue, and then back around.  As you can see, our parish is not just full of Italian-Americans but quite diverse. 

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us!

Sunday Meditation: Whoever Has Ears Ought To Hear

We all know that Jesus spoke in parables, and in this great parable, He explains why He does so.

 

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.  Such large crowds gathered around him

that he got into a boat and sat down,

and the whole crowd stood along the shore.

And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:

"A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,

and birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.

It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,

and when the sun rose it was scorched,

and it withered for lack of roots.

Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.  But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,

a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.

Whoever has ears ought to hear."

 

The disciples approached him and said,

"Why do you speak to them in parables?"

He said to them in reply,

"Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven

has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.

To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;

from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because

they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.  Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,

you shall indeed look but never see.

Gross is the heart of this people,

they will hardly hear with their ears,

they have closed their eyes,

lest they see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their hearts and be converted,

and I heal them.

 

"But blessed are your eyes, because they see,

and your ears, because they hear.

Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people

longed to see what you see but did not see it,

and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

 

"Hear then the parable of the sower.

The seed sown on the path is the one

who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it,

and the evil one comes and steals away

what was sown in his heart.

The seed sown on rocky ground

is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.

But he has no root and lasts only for a time.

When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.

The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word,

but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word

and it bears no fruit.

But the seed sown on rich soil

is the one who hears the word and understands it,

who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold."

Mt 13:1-23

 

I’m always taken with how important hearing is in this passage, hearing the parable but as one sits in the pew for every Mass one hears the Word and the Gospel.  Aren’t we all just a little hard of hearing.  Fr. Joseph Mary, the Capuchin Friar has a wonderful explanation of this passage.

 

Meditation: Acknowledging Jesus.

“But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Last night the parish at the vigil Mass celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.  Our pastor, Fr. Eugene, is a Lay Carmelite, and he had the entire chapter from Staten Island at the Mass.  After the Mass we took the statue of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and processed her through the streets around the parish.  We had to cut it short because of a thunderstorm, which came just as we tucked the statue under cover.  Here is a picture of the Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

And here just as we got her to cover before the storm.

I wasn’t able to take as many pictures this year since I was carrying the Italian flag, but if you want to read and see many more pictures, check out my post from 2017.  We had the same Italian band and similar turnout as then.

Faith Filled Friday: The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

This was the second year our parish—St. Rita’s Church in Staten Island, NY—celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  I took pictures last year and thought I posted them on the blog, but apparently not.  I couldn’t find any post.  I took pictures again this year and so I’ll post now.

OurLady of Mount Carmel is the title of our Blessed Mother as patroness of the Carmelite Order.  Mount Carmel is the group of mountains in northern Israel where the Carmelite hermits gathered and founded the order shortly after the Crusades had retaken the Holy Land.  The Carmelite Order has had a long and glorious tradition all the way to today.  July 16^th is the feast day, established by the appearance of the Holy Virgin to Carmelite friar, St. Simon Stock on that day in 1251.  And so Carmelites, lay and religious, have been celebrating this feast for centuries.  This year July 16^th fell on a Sunday, and so we celebrated right after the 12:30 PM mass.

Now the celebration of OLMC is basically an Italian feast event, and like many summer time Italian feasts, there is a statue of the saint which is carried out of the church, placed on a large rolling cart or dolly, and paraded through the neighborhood with a marching band. 

So here is the statue being carried out of the church.

We had an explosion of confetti once it was out and my camera caught it.

The professionals then placed it on top of the dolly and locked it in.

The statue is beautifully dressed.  Here are some close ups.

There are lots of banners and flags in the procession.

Since this is their feast day, here’s one of the Lay Carmelites.

We actually had two Italian marching bands, one in the front and one in the back.  Here’s the one in the front.

And the procession went through the neighborhood.  Last year we handed out prayer cards and scapulars as we walked.  For some reason we didn’t do it this year.

It was a very hot and humid day.  We only marched a few blocks and around, maybe amounting to a half mile.  Finally we concluded with pizza and cookies and fresh soft drinks at the church auditorium.

The dress’s train are actually ribbons pinned with money that parishioners donated. 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us.