San Giovanni Rotondo-Valle dell’Inferno 1 May 2017

By Fr. Alfredo M. Tortorella MI

The first of May, as is well known, is a public holiday that commands a great deal of attention. The spring with its fine weather, initiatives promoted by organisations and local councils, and the opportunity for a further ‘holiday bridge’ at work or school, lead a significant number of people to satisfy their wish to ‘go out’ and enjoy some of the beauty of our fine country, a beauty that is both cultural and natural.

In San Giovanni Rotondo – a city that is internationally famous because of the figure of the charismatic St. Padre Pio but which is equally important because it was the location, together with Manfredonia, of the events connected with the conversion of the equally charismatic St. Camillus de Lellis, which took place on the distant date of 2 February 1575 – the first of May of this year was characterised by an extraordinary event patronised by the town council of San Giovanni Rotondo in cooperation with the ‘St. Camillus de Lellis – Valle dell’Inferno’ Association’ and organised by the ‘Nordic Walking & Trekking Michele Cirella’, an association of walkers and hikers. This event inaugurated the new nature path of the ‘St. Camillus Road’ which goes from the centre of San Giovanni Rotondo to the Valle dell’Inferno. In addition to this association of walkers, various other similar associations – which are currently very much flourishing in Gargano – also participated: ‘Le Tartarughe Sagge’ (‘The Wise Tortoises’), ‘I Viandanti Sipontini’ (‘The Sipontine Travellers’), ‘Gargano Nordic Walking’ and very many others who took part in an enthusiastic way in the first and authentic ‘Walk along the Road of St. Camillus’. This was a ‘small people’ made up of the middle-aged, some grandfathers, a goodly group of teenagers and young people, and even… various little dogs accompanying their owners in a lively fashion!

     From the Camillian community of Gargano of Macchia-Monte Sant’Angelo Fr. Alfredo Tortorella accompanied the walkers down the 7.5km of the route and then up again, starting in Parco del Papa (the park that was inaugurated in 1987 for the visit of John Paul II to San Giovanni Rotondo)  with as its destination the Valle dell’Inferno and the votive altar with the large red cross of St. Camillus. This is a very beautiful path which, winding down from the outskirts of the town with its innumerable little villas that are still being built, becomes gradually more silent because it falls into a nature that is more uncontaminated: the scent of wild marjoram, the bleating of flocks, the sun and a pleasant breeze allowed the innumerable travellers to enjoy a wonderful spring walk. After reaching Valle dell’Inferno, Fr. Rosario Messina – accompanied by Fr. Aldo Milazzo and by Fr. Bartolomeo d’Arienzo – described not only the extraordinary story of the conversion of St. Camillus which took place precisely here amidst that splendour of the nature of the National Park of Gargano (a story and place that many people, even though they came from villages and towns in Gargano, did not in the least know about), but also a project which the Camillians of the South of Italy, together with the St. Camillus de Lellis Association in the person of its president, Mr. Antonio Cappucci, have in the pipeline: a very fine amphitheatre located behind the altar with its red cross, perfectly integrated with nature, to receive in a more fitting way the pilgrims and the travellers who increasingly come to the valley, and not only on the second day of February. This project has been fully approved by the competent authorities and a surrounding wall in local stone is presently being built for the area in order to stop animals from dirtying the open-air altar. To build the amphitheatre a request has been made to benefactors and people devoted to St. Camillus.

      If walking, according to what medical doctors say, does good to your organism, there can be no doubt that the ‘first walk along the road of St. Camillus’ also did a great deal of good to people’s souls. For that matter, the Gospel of the Sunday before the first of May described Jesus as a ‘Mysterious Traveller’ who drew near to two travelling disciples and walked with them, a sign that when travelling meetings often lead us to discover new wonders through listening to stories and tales that ‘open our eyes’ and ‘ignite our hearts’!

     The hope is that free time will be increasingly used for initiatives that are as simple and as rich as this one was!