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On Saturday evening the Statues emerged from the Church
and the Red Band was waiting on the sidewalk to greet them by playing “Marcia Reale”.
The band continued to play Italian Marches as the buses
from Canada pulled up at the curb. By the time we finished - the Statues were
surrounded by hundreds of pilgrims pinning Canadian dollars on the Saints and
then receiving a Holy Card for each donation.
Because we had to wait for the candlelight procession and
the final Benediction to finish – we could not start our concert until 8:45pm
even though we had a large audience patiently waiting for well over an hour to
hear us.
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We played until 10:30 taking only a very short break as
the buses began picking up the passengers to return to their hotels for the
night.The crowd seemed larger than ever and the lines for food and pizza fritte were exceptionally long.
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On Sunday the Red Band was there for two processions – the first is a small procession to escort two young boys dressed as the Saints from a nearby house back to the Church for Mass.
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For the Grand Procession after Mass we split into two
bands –one leading the way and escorting the Statue of St. Cosmas and one at
the end following the Statue of St. Damian with hundreds of Pilgrims in-between
chanting and praying in Italian.
Also present was a Statue of St. Padre Pio and his fairly
large group of followers.
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Every year along the route we are greeted by the Tocco
and Aiello families who had husbands and fathers that once played in the band.
In their memory each family has a “Marcia Reale” played for them.We also stop and play “Marcia Reale” to honor all the homes displaying large posters of the Saints. Many of these homes were also decorated with pretty fall flowers and looked very nice on a beautiful, sunny, autumn afternoon.
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For more photos of the Feast please click on
VIVA LA BANDA ROSSA!!!
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