Pope John Paul II
Pilgrim in the footsteps of St. Paul
SPEECHES

09.05.2001
at THE GRANARIES
ENGLISH
Message by HG Msgr Joseph Mercieca
Archbishop of Malta

Beatification Celebration
at the Granaries, Floriana
9 May 2001

Most Holy Father,

The Maltese community living in our Islands of Malta and Gozo is today gathered around Your Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in order to rejoice together in the Lord and express to him our heartfelt thanks.

We want to thank the Lord that in the very early dawn of Christianity, twenty centuries ago, our forefathers, through the advent of Saint Paul on our shores, were given the gift of faith and trust in God as our loving and almighty Father.

We want to thank Him also that eleven years ago our country has been greatly blessed with a three-day pastoral visit of Your Holiness. It was a truly great event which all of us dearly cherished and appreciated. It still lingers in our minds, gladdening our hearts. It will go down in our chequered history as a special gift of the concern and love which Your Holiness has always had for our country and which was manifested on several occasions. We thank you once again for having confirmed us in our faith!

We want to thank the Lord also for today's gift. Today, the ninth of May 2001, is the day we have been looking forward to in silence with eager expectation for a long time. Today, our hopes are fulfilled, a new bright day has risen, filling us with serene joy and spiritual blessings.

During your pilgrimage, undertaken in the footsteps of St. Paul, Your Holiness kindly complied with our wishes and requests and deigned to honour us and come for a second time to our country on a short pastoral visit, during which Your Holiness, as Vicar of Christ, will be declaring Blessed our brethren the Venerable Dun Gorg Preca, Founder of the Society of Christian Doctrine, the Venerable Nazju Falzon, and the Venerable Maria Adeodata Pisani OSB.

This is an event of primary importance not only for the Church in Malta but also for the whole Nation. Malta has so far survived in its public profession of the Catholic Faith, which was proclaimed by St. Paul when, through the direct intervention of Divine Providence, he was shipwrecked on our shores. Now Malta is being blessed for the first time in its history with the solemn beatification, to be held on its native soil, of three of its children.

As we live this extraordinary event we feel that the Lord, through Your Holiness, is again urging all of us to show our gratitude to him for the many gifts he has showered upon us by remaining loyal to the Catholic faith and steadfast in the values that flow from it.

It is a fact that the many threats to the values of our forefathers and their weakening, together with the emergence of different mentalities and cultures are greatly affecting Malta. This causes concern. One has to face up to this situation.

We firmly believe that only the Lord Jesus is the Way to counteract the culture of consumerism, of permissiveness and of divisiveness in families and in our social and political life that is stealthily but steadily being promoted through various means of communication in our Islands.

We believe that only the Lord Jesus is the Way that will lead us to build a renewed society whose ideals, in theory and practice, are justice, peace, honesty and transparency. One has to respect those who profess other beliefs and hold other values. Yet, to have the courage of one's convictions, we have to know how to bear witness to the Lord Jesus and to the teachings and values of our Faith.

Adhering to the teachings of the Magisterium we are called upon to uphold faithfully the Christian vision which we inherited from the past.

This spirit of stewardship has inspired us Bishops of these Islands, in our Pastoral Letter for Lent 2001, to ask our beloved sons and daughters in the Lord to prepare themselves for the visit of Your Holiness by making an examination of conscience with the help of what you taught us and encouraged us to hold dear when you visited us eleven years ago.

We thank Your Holiness. We promise to keep you in our prayers. We all ask for your Apostolic Blessing and your prayers.

Beatification Celebration
Floriana, 9 May 2001