Feast in honor of San Nicolò Politi

Tradition has it that the Saint was born into a noble family of Adernò, today Adrano in the province of Catania, around the year 1117. The parents Almidoro and Alpina, advanced in age, unable to have children, went on pilgrimage to Alcara, a small town of Messina, on the occasion of the feast of Santo Nicolò di Mira, promising the Holy Bishop to vote for his son in his honor. Thus was born Nicolò Politi, the only heir of the rich family. He grew up educated with fervent religious principles, leading a path of spiritual growth and developing the will to dedicate his life to prayer in isolation. He definitively detached himself from the material world after a bitter clash with his father, who had seen a different future for his son, arranging his marriage to a young girl of equal rank. After a long wandering between hardships, he came near the town of Alcara and began to frequent the monastery of Santa Maria del Rogato. There lived Father Cusmano di Alcara, a monk who, due to his spiritual depth, was named "the theologian". It is Father Cusmano who recounts in his biography a miraculous event attributable to Nicola Politi. The hermit, arrived in an arid expanse, invoked God's help to soothe his thirst and, struck a stone with his stick, he made a spring gush in that place capable also of healing diseases. The source, now incorporated in a chapel, was, from the beginning, a destination for constant pilgrimages. In 1137 the Saint made his home in a solitary cave on Mount Calanna, not far from the miraculous spring, and remained there until his death, which took place thirty years later.

On 17 August 1167 a shepherd, who went to the place of the cave in search of a lost ox, found the body of the hermit on his knees, with his hands attached to his stick and his eyes turned to the sky. In dismay, he touched the man's body and his arm was paralyzed to the touch. So it was that he understood that it must be a holy man and ran to divulge the news to the local archpriest. A procession was organized at the place of the discovery and, when, in an equally miraculous way, the shepherd's arm was healed, the saint's body became an object of veneration. Carried on a coffin in the village, arrived near the church of Sant'Ippolito, the coffin became very heavy, so much so as to force the suspension of the procession and its deposition on the ground. The attempts to transport the body were in vain, until a boy shouted to transport it to the monastery of Santa Maria del Rogato. Only then did the coffin become light again, allowing it to be transported in the indicated logo. There the body was recognized by Father Cusmano, confessor of the Saint, who, given the exceptional nature of the find, collected and recounted the extraordinary facts of the ascetic's life. The body of the saint remained in the monastery for 336 years, an object of worship by the faithful, until in 1503 the people of Alcarese, scourged by a very long drought, in pleading prayer, went to the Rogato to implore the intercession of the saint who did not was late in arriving. The population cried out for a miracle.