The Procession of the Candle is a Marian votive and devotional rite linking Rocche di Civitella del Tronto — a hillside hamlet structured into four districts (Rocca Ischiano, Rocca San Nicola, Rocca Case d’Angelo and Rocca Ceppino) — to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria dei Lumi (Holy Mary of Lights), located at the foot of the historic town, about four kilometres from the settlement of Rocche. The observance is conventionally fixed on 20 May, with possible shifts to the nearest Sunday. It commemorates the miraculous rainfall that followed a prolonged drought, which had dried out the fields of Rocche, Civitella itself and neighbouring villages, causing famine, disease and the death of both people and animals.

Available local sources provide differing versions of the miraculous event and its dating, testifying to the vitality of oral tradition in the contemporary context, while consistently preserving the underlying narrative core: the vow, the waiting, the miracle and the perpetual act of thanksgiving carried out by the communities. In a thesis devoted to the “customs and traditions” of the inhabitants of Rocche di Civitella del Tronto and neighbouring villages, Vanda Romani places the event in the “distant May of 1800” and describes the people of Rocche setting out barefoot, singing and imploring, accompanied by a cloud that grows into a storm just as the statue of the Virgin re-enters the church. Elisa Lizzi, in a volume dedicated to the festive memory of her childhood in the village, recounts that the penitential pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria dei Lumi, undertaken in the hope of ending a devastating drought that had lasted for two years, took place “in a distant past”, according to what was told by her grandparents during winter evenings; already during the liturgy the sky darkened, and heavy rain fell as soon as the service ended. Testimonies collected by Andrea Salemi, finally, date the establishment of the cult to 1779, when “the inhabitants of the various rural districts of Civitella organised a procession to the Sanctuary of the Madonna dei Lumi” in order to “avert the impending famine”, and were rewarded by abundant rainfall as soon as they approached the place of worship. Licio Di Donato specifies that the first miracle was followed by a second, similar one, on 27 April 1883, from which the town’s patronal feast at the same sanctuary is said to derive.

In its current ceremonial configuration, on the eve of 20 May, a group of appointed participants goes to the sanctuary to collect the Candle — also known as the Torch — and bring it to the parish church of one of the two Rocche parishes: San Nicola (Diocese of Teramo-Atri), serving the districts of San Nicola and Ischiano, or the church of Santa Felicita (Diocese of San Benedetto del Tronto-Ripatransone-Montalto), serving Case d’Angelo and Ceppino. This division reflects the historically unusual circumstance that the small settlement of Rocche lies along the boundary between two dioceses. At the end of the mass, the procession — with the group of bearers, who take turns carrying the Candle — proceeds on foot and in prayer along the road leading to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria dei Lumi, where a second service marks the conclusion of the votive journey.

Until the second half of the twentieth century, on the morning of 20 May, before the procession began, a veritable auction of offerings took place between the two parishes. Each appointed its own procurator — a well-to-do member of the community — tasked with collecting monetary donations from the parishioners and, in addition to the collective sum, contributing a personal amount sufficient to outbid the rival parish. The auction determined which parish would have the right to carry the Candle in procession and, consequently, to host it after the ceremony at the sanctuary: the Torch would then be kept for the following year in the parish church of the winning side. This agonistic-devotional dynamic between the two diocesan “hemispheres” of the village constitutes a particularly significant anthropological feature: the procession functioned as an annual occasion for renewing the internal polarity of the community, expressed through offerings and generosity rather than conflict. Throughout the four-kilometre route, the pace of the procession was marked by the rhythm of a snare drum and a bass drum, whose steady and insistent beat drew the attention of the farmhouses and hamlets along the way. At the end of the ceremony, the convent offered refreshments of wine, drinks and light food: a moment of hospitality extended to all participants in the procession, which, during the years of post-war poverty, represented for many one of the few festive convivial occasions of the year.