The celebration of the Forestry Corps for its patron saint San Giovanni Gualberto in Bonarcado, in the sanctuary of the Madonna di Bonacatu, is exciting and evocative. This morning, approximately two hundred retired forest rangers paid homage to their protector with a holy mass at the Basilica of Santa Maria, a celebration officiated by the parish priest of Gadoni, Don Fabio Marras. A former forest ranger, the priest recalled his experience: «I am pleased to see the faces of many former colleagues with whom I took the course in Sabaudia after 34 years. It wasn't easy to leave the Forestry Corps, but I made my life choice: to follow the Lord."
The patron Saint Giovanni Gualberto, 951 years after his death, is the patron saint of Italian foresters and founder of the Benedictine monastic order in Vallombrosa. The Bonarcade ceremony took place simultaneously with the national one that the abbot general of the Vallombrosans celebrates in the Abbey of Vallombrosa, in the province of Florence, where the saint lived around the year one thousand.
Before the mass, Salvatore Marras, professor of Architecture, told the story of the basilica and sanctuary of Bonarcado. After the ceremony, the former forest rangers, together with the deputy mayor Stefania Piredda, planted an olive tree, a symbol of peace, in the square of the basilica.
