Pilgrimages to Valleverde – May

Traditions

The Sanctuary of Valleverde, chosen by the Virgin herself as her special cult, since the day of her Prodigious Apparition, has (/ been) for the people of Bovine destination of devoted pilgrimages to be made on the first Sunday of May and May 23rd.On the first Sunday of May, the ritual votive procession moves to the sanctuary, to which the confraternities and the representatives of the Cathedral Chapter take part, together with the people. On the way back to the village, the countryside is blessed with the relic of the Braccio di San Marco, patron saint of the city.
It is not known when the devout custom began, it is probably aimed at the Apparition in the spring.
The pilgrimage of May 23 is instead linked to the event of the miraculous rain of May 23, 1888. What happened? a terrible drought had afflicted the whole of Puglia for several months, bringing farmers to poverty. The people of Bovino, we read in a Minutes preserved in the Episcopal Curia, undertook, on May 21, a pilgrimage. For the believers, Our Lady had to hear the prayer of her followers because the clear sky clouded over flooding the arid lands of Bovino. In memory of the event, which “had presented visibly miraculous characters”, the annual thanksgiving procession of 23 May was instituted by vote of the people, which is still renewed by the people of Bovino.

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