He was a master of everything, even crafting Easter palms. Raffaele Mereu, who recently passed away at 96, owned a marble shop on Ninasuni Street. One of his hobbies was shaping palms for the Sunday before the most beautiful religious holiday of the year.

For him, it was a highly anticipated event, like the village festivals and the feast of Sant'Efisio in Cagliari. He had a large palm tree at home, which he tended with great care, knowing full well that its branches would be used especially at Easter. He knew how to create authentic works of art, marvelous weavings to present to his parish of Santa Barbara and to his faithful. But he was a master of sweets, and gateu in particular. "For him," says his son Luigi Mereu, "the processing of palm trees was perhaps a more eagerly awaited ritual. He tended the tree in our courtyard, another in the parish house of Santa Barbara, another on Via 4 Novembre, in the courtyard of the former Enel headquarters. He had a very special technique, all his own; each palm took on a different shape: authentic masterpieces that he loved to display on Palm Sunday."

A maestro, in short, who passed away last week at the age of 96: a life of work, with the church that had become his second home. "A man of action," wrote Franco Olla in the Santa Barbara Weekly, "in all his activities, from the tireless work for the sweets exhibition to the organization of pilgrimages, to his commitment to choirs and folk groups. He was always present.

"His," said Don Marcello Loi, a native of Sinnai and parish priest of Pula, "was not a spirituality lived in the clouds of a vague mysticism; his was a spirituality of concrete action, of charity and service, available to the community of Santa Barbara."

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