One wintry day a Sicilian found refuge in a local port after his boat capsized - or so he made the people and the authorities believe. He petitioned the Governor of Gozo to allow him to stay on the island and his wish was granted. He used to sit at a corner by the marketplace, begging for alms or food that might fill his stomach. But as the people were very poor he often remained empty-handed. During the night he used to seek refuge in a cave or some dilapidated building.

One Friday in Lent, while on his daily round for alms, he was attracted by a procession that came out from the Matrice, the present Cathedral, and wended its way around the streets of the Citadel. The members of the old Confraternity of the Crucifix walked in a grey and black habit behind a large cross. The custom was very similar to that in his Sicilian town, but there the people carried several statues of Christ representing different moments of the Passion.

The following day he sought out the rector of the Confraternity and told him of the custom back home. He himself had sculpted many such statues and was prepared to sculpt another set for the Matrice's confraternity. He would do the job free of charge if he was procured board and lodging.

Within the Citadel there was an old chapel of Saint Joseph with a spacious empty house, and it was placed at his disposal. He began sculpting several heads, hands and feet of Christ, for he intended the figures to be dressed with richly-adorned clothes. He made four statues: Christ at the Garden of Gethsemane, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns, and the Fall under the Cross.

The figures were indeed a masterpiece and instilled such a sense of compassion that the number of participants in the procession increased a hundredfold the following year. The Sicilian never suffered hunger again.

It later became known that he had been found guilty of murder and received a life sentence, but succeeded in escaping from prison. But even when his background became known, he was allowed to remain in Gozo to continue working on other sculptures.

Holy Week, that begins on Palm Sunday and comes to an end on Easter Sunday, this year falls from April 16 to 23. It is so called because during these eight days Christians throughout the whole world commemorate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is a time of great religious observance, and until the Second World War indulgence in social pleasures and amusements was regarded as totally alien to the spirit of the week. In former times it was also a week of fasting; the Courts of Justice did not sit; servile work was forbidden; and an amnesty was extended to certain classes of prisoners.

As the foregoing story shows, many customs related to Holy Week in Malta and Gozo were imported from Sicily, where they were in turn introduced from Spain during the long reign of the Aragonese in Sicily, Malta and Gozo.

In fact, the most famous Semana Santa, or Holy Week, has been celebrated in Seville, Spain, for centuries. Fifty-seven cofradias, or confraternities, proceed in penitence through the many narrow streets of the city from their church to the cathedral and back, taking the shortest possible route, as decreed by a clause in the ordinances of Cardinal Nifio de Guevara in the 17th century. Each confraternity has a group of costaleros that carry pasos, or floats, representing different moments of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Throughout the route, clerical and lay preachers invite the spectators to penitence.

A float carried by many of the confraternities is La Soledad or the Mater Dolorosa, a statue representing the sorrowful Blessed Virgin Mary below the cross of her crucified Son. Such processions are also very popular in Gozo and Malta.

Locally, the procession with Id-Duluri, the Virgin Mary of Sorrows, is held on the Friday preceding Palm Sunday. People in thousands pace and pray in a procession in which many wend the way barefoot - not a daring enterprise on plain tarmacked streets, but quite a sacrifice where the way is littered with coarse sharp stones. On that day, to join in a tangible mode in the sorrows of the Blessed Virgin, many pious people fast on hobz u ilma, literally bread and water. They consume nothing else on that day. This fast is observed in several parts of Gozo to this day.

On Palm Sunday the people convene in a chapel in the vicinity of each parish church. The celebrant blesses sprouting palm fronds and olive branches with holy water and, after incensing them, distributes them to the congregation. Then the celebrant and the people, carrying the palm and olive branches, proceed in procession from the chapel to the principal church.

This is done to recall and represent in dramatic form the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jeruslamen before His death. At the end, the fronds and olives are taken home and placed in a prominent place to ward off evil. In bygone times, during Holy Week the boatmen on the Gozo boats that plied between the port of Mgarr and the Valletta Grand Harbour bedecked the masts of their sails with blessed palm and olive branches.

The people gather again in church on Maundy Thursday in the evening. At the end of mass, the celebrant carries the Blessed Sacrament from the high altar to the Altar of Repose, Is-Sepulkru. The Altar of Repose is lighted by row upon row of candles, each rising from a multitude of spring flowers and plates of sprouting grain. The latter custom, observed also in nearby Sicily and Calabria, recalls the mythological garden of Adonis embellished in a similar way by his beloved Venus.

Hundreds of people from every rank and class, in couples or in groups, visit Is-Sepulkru to pray. As there is an Altar of Repose in every church and chapel, many make it a point to visit not one but seven altars, reciting prayers intermittently as they move from one church to another.

A very beautiful Sepulkru is installed in the Gozo Cathedral. It consists of a wooden baroque structure resembling a royal sepulchre that takes up a whole chapel in the left aisle. It was designed by Giuseppe Farrugia, executed by Spiridione Vella, and has three painted panels by Enrico Busuttil.

The most poignant event of Holy Week is the procession on Good Friday. The main attraction are seven life-size tableaux representing the principal moments of the passion and death of Jesus: Christ at Gethsemane (Ta' l-Ort); The Scourging at the Pillar (Tal-Kolonna); The Crowning with Thorns (Tal-Porpra); The Fall under the Cross (L-Imghobbi); The Crucifixion (Il-Vara l-Kbira); The Procession to the Tomb (Il-Monument); and Our Lady of Sorrows (Il-Duluri). The statues are papier mâché models, richly dressed in velvet clothes, just like those in Seville.

The most majestic is the Crucifixion: it portrays Christ crucified with the evangelist Saint John the Apostle on one side and the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus, on the other. Mary Magdalene kneels by the cross and embraces the feet of the dying Christ, while a soldier pierces the side of Jesus with a lance.

Scores of children and young people are dressed in period costumes to add to the pageantry of the manifestation. Most impressive is the Roman Legion: a gleam of breastplates, spears and shields announcing themselves with trumpets and drums. The procession is accompanied by a local band.

On Easter Saturday evening there is a very long ceremony in the church which reaches its climax when the celebrant intones the Gloria. All church bells are rung simultaneously to announce the Risen Christ.

In mid-morning on Easter Sunday a procession with a statue of the Risen Christ moves around the streets close to the church. At the end, the way is cleared and the statue-bearers take a run to carry the Risen Christ triumphantly back into the church.

At noon all children receive a figolla as a gift. This is a pastry figure of a doll, lamp, duck, fish and the like, with a chocolate egg stuck in its middle.

(c) Joseph Bezzina
published in "Malta This Month" - Air Malta's inflight magazine

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