BRA
As tradition wants, also at the beginning of 2020, in the afternoon of Epiphany, the investiture ceremony of the new confreres of the Confraternity of Mercy will take place, plus known in the city as black.
The investiture – officiated by Don Giorgio Garrone – will be incorporated into the holiday mass of 5 pm, in the church of San Giovanni Decollato, for the private time they will wear the habit Franco Lamberto, Giuseppe Lamberto and Luciano Leone.
The confraternity of Mercy, or of the black beaters, under the title of S. Giovanni Decollato was founded in Bra in 1587. In general, they had the function of helping the weakest and most needy people in all circumstances, and this especially during epidemics and famines. In practice, they carried out those assistance tasks to which, in our company, the state should provide, or should provide. The Confraternities also had, among the primary purposes, the solidarity towards the confreres that should be in difficulty. In addition to the purposes of worship and prayer, common to all the confraternities, the black beaten proposed to visit and help prisoners not only spiritually, but also materially, to assist and comfort the sentenced to death, which accompanied up to the gallows, and to provide them with a Christian burial.
