Lifting of the Giglio: A Neighborhood Tradition of Invitation

Hundreds of enthusiastic spectators crowded onto Havemeyer Street in front of the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Sunday, July 9, to witness a Catholic tradition that dates back to  1887 Italy: the hoisting of the seven-story Giglio.

Mural of Williamsburg and Mt. Carmel Feast Graces Parish Hall

Turn left at the bottom of the steps of Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s St. Paulinus Hall in Williamsburg and your eyes are filled with a colorful mural  celebrating this Brooklyn neighborhood and the return of the parish’s annual Giglio Feast.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel to Celebrate Feast Day

There will be no Procession of the Giglio at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel this year, but the church will still celebrate a feast day with scaled down events.

News Coverage ‘Lifts’ Giglio Feast

A fresh wave of able-bodied lifters has rejuvenated an Italian tradition that dates back more than a century in Williamsburg and more than a millennium in Nola, Italy.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio - Put Out Into the Deep

Two Beautiful Italian Traditions

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,Brooklyn celebrates many patronal feasts, but for Brooklyn and Queens, the Feasts of St. Paolino and Our Lady of Mount Carmel celebrated at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Williamsburg are what the Italians call the “la festa di tutte le feste.” San Gennaro uses that expression for its feast in Manhattan, but in Brooklyn, it is Mount Carmel-St Paolino, that creates the great Italian festival each year.