Photos: Littlerock.com.mt

Sister Michaela, who is best known as being one of the members of the Malta Eurovision finalists Ekklesia Sisters, battled with drugs and alcohol in her teens, and was even involved with a satanic group for a number of months.

In an interview published on Littlerock.com.mt, the bubbly Sister says she was sexually abused by relatives and neighbours when she was still very young.

Sr Michaela shared her story with a view to inspire people who are passing through difficult times by offering them hope for positive change.

The sexual abuse lasted from the age of 7 until 16, she tells interviewer Melanie Drury. "I never spoke about the abuse or sought help, and just prayed to God that these things would stop happening to me. Then one day, when I was 14, I was walking home from school, when I was violently raped by a neighbour in his shop in Saqqajja. It was a very savage rape and it changed everything. I shut God out of my life, feeling all alone in life and no one to take care of me; I blamed God for all the things that He was letting happen to me in my life."

Eventually, Michaela started doing drugs. In the interview she talks openly of how she used to smoke cigarettes and buy weed for Lm10. She was also taking pills and swallowing them down with alcohol. "The drugs affected me a lot; psychologically I felt that I was numbing the pain, but really it was only becoming suppressed, so I became depressed and felt suicidal - there was no meaning in life and no reason to live."

Sister Michaela met the satanic group in the canteen of the Higher Secondary in Msida. She was 16 at the time. She took up an invitation to attend a Black Mass in an apartment in St Paul's Bay. "She did not know what to expect, as 26 years ago these things were shrouded in secrecy, but she was interested in payback time for God."

Her involvement in satanic practices lasted 15 months. "We used witchcraft using blasphemous cards, a Ouija board for calling the dead, songs to worship the devil and profanity of sacred items. Although I felt all that anger and rebellion, when they were being profane I realised that they still believed in the Eucharist; they must believe that God is in the Eucharist, because otherwise all this did not make sense. The leaders of the group were called Lords and they wore hoods with spaces for the eyes, and they would call the devil in the form of a growing flame which they touched without burning themselves."

Sr Michaela says the one time she saw a demon, he appeared as an animal. "He was long, greenish and the skin was wet and shiny. He had small eyes, a long tongue like a snake and short hands, but she could not see the feet. He appeared in a human-sized, solid shape; not like a ghost or spirit.

It seems to her that while they did ask things of the devil, really the focus was on making offerings and the devil would request things from them. She remembers that one intent was to break a priest's vows through flirting and to break a couple via anonymous letters claiming adultery."

The Sister believes that these things are still going on, because after telling her story on a TV programme several people approached her for help. "We must remember that even today the occult is popular although still taboo, because in Malta all that is not Catholic people are not open about."

Michaela frequently went home drugged or drunk and this led to many arguments with her parents. "I swore a lot and was very aggressive but they did not know about the abuse or satanic rituals. They threatened to put me in rehabilitation or take me to the police, but instead my mother literally locked me inside the house, even forbidding me to go to school."

Michaela suffered withdrawals and even tried to commit suicide. In the meantime, members of the satanic group watched the house and threatened her family. Then, her mother forced her to go to a healing service.

"I was determined not to go but she had people literally drag me there and I was blaspheming all the way to the church, which I refused to enter. I stayed at the door, but the healing service felt mysterious and enthralling and I felt as if somebody was telling me, 'Don't worry, we can make a new start.' I was too proud to admit that something had changed in me."

Michaela started attending the prayer meetings as a means to bypass her house arrest but was touched by the group's acceptance of her and their desire to help. Within a year she changed completely: she was working with her uncle, continued to attend the prayer meetings and visited the Ursuline Sisters in Sliema.

At age 18 she asked to become a nun. "Then a supreme peace fell upon me and it felt the right thing to do."

Sr Michaela joined the Ursuline Sisters of St Angela Merici. She worked as a teacher for 24 years and has been Assistant Superior in Guardamangia for the past year and a half.