No fireworks are needed to announce the miracle . A carriage slowly advancing through the main streets of the city and the bated breath of the faithful are enough: Efisio has returned home , the vow has been fulfilled and Sardinia, for the 369th time, has kept its promise.
At 11:30 pm the Saint's carriage, wrapped in the gala clothes worn by Giorgino, returned to his little church, in Stampace, among the illuminated streets, an uninterrupted crowd of faithful and the sounds of the party . But Efisio did not return alone. With him were the women and men who, from Viale La Playa to the little church, walked tightly in traditional clothes with a candle in one hand and a rosary in the other.
It is a liturgy of faces and colors: the horses that lead the way, the carriage pulled by oxen, “No ti nd'acatas” and “Chi ses Cambiadu” (the names) and the crowd that sways behind, between tears, pleas, promises and smiles.
Curious, tourists, devotees: all taken by something that is difficult to explain . And yet Efisio, for centuries, has asked only for faith, the one that in 1657 implored salvation from the plague that was tightening the throat of Cagliari. A desperate vow that had transformed a Roman soldier into a Sardinian saint. Since then, every year, thousands of punctual steps accompany him on the same road.
At 11:43 p.m., Andrea Loi, president of the Archconfraternity, reads the words that mark the end of the rite and the beginning of the wait for next year : "Most Reverend Canon, most illustrious Mrs. Alternos, please communicate to the Metropolitan Chapter and to the Mayor of the Municipality of Cagliari that today, May 4, 2025, the year of the Jubilee, the vow has been dissolved. And so it will always be, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the intercession of Our Lady of Ransom and the glorious martyr Saint Efisio, patron of this Archconfraternity. Atrus Annus."
And in the little church of Stampace there is applause, tears, hands raised to the sky. Someone whispers "thank you". Someone else simply remains silent. "Atrus annus", a wish, but also a promise: next year we will be there again, walking with the glorious martyr.
Meanwhile, the bells ring and Is Gocius rise into the air: «Protettori poderosu De Sardigna speziali Liberainosi de mali Efis martiri gloriosu», so goes the refrain of the devotional songs of Iberian origin. Cagliari and the whole of Sardinia have once again dissolved the vote.
