While the nation is sliding fast into Christmas mode, with flashy Christmas decorations on windows and in the streets, Cospicua has for the past weeks been buzzing with activity in preparation for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, its patron.
This harbour town is one of the few remaining places which celebrate their feast according to the liturgical calendar, even if the feast falls in the wintry season.
Why do the Bormlizi still celebrate their feast on the 8 December, when the possibility of rain and bad weather is something to be expected?
“We the people of Cospicua hold the 8 December as a very dear date,” said Sunny Aquilina, a poet from Cospicua, “as besides the liturgical feast, the fact that Our Lady was conceived without being tainted by the original sin was declared a Christian Dogma on 8 December 1854.”
He explained how the town has been under the patronage of Our Lady since Medieval times, first under the title of Our Lady of Help (Tas-Sokkors). The chapel which was later replaced by the present parish church was situated on the Hill of the Gardens (L-Gholja tal-Gonna).
Cospicua seceded from Vittoriosa and became a parish in 1586. Some years earlier, in 1575, the people of Cospicua successfully petitioned for a rector to be appointed in order to care for the burgeoning community of some 1,200 souls.
The request was made just 10 years after the Great Siege, during which the Knights of St John demolished almost each and every house that was close to Senglea or on the vantage point of St Margherita Hill which could be used by the Turks.
Cospicua flourished throughout the years, with the setting up of the first shipyard by the Knights and was a commercial and artistic hub of 13,000 people by the end of the 19th century.
Throughout the years the people of Cospicua have always entrusted themselves to the Immaculate Conception and have contributed heavily to the parish church as a material token of their devotion.
On 8 December 1854, Blessed Pope Pius IX defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which made the people of Cospicua even prouder to be under the patronage of this title of the Virgin Mary.
The declaration was important for the Universal Church, however, the people of Cospicua claimed a special bond with the dogma, which strengthened their relation with whom they call the Mother of Our City” (Omm Beltna).
This year is the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to Bernadette Soubirous in the Grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes, France.
When the young girl asked “the beautiful lady” who she was, Our Lady replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception” (Que Soy Era Immaculada Councepciou), thus confirming the dogma promulgated merely four years earlier.
The apparitions at Lourdes marked a turning point in how Our Lady was portrayed in paintings and statues. While normally Our Lady was portrayed in red and blue garments or white and blue, she started to be portrayed in white with a blue sash following the apparitions, as portrayed in Cospicua’s altarpiece.
However, the painting was made by Pietru Pawl Caruana in 1828, 30 years before the Lourdes apparitions. The painting was commissioned by Mgr Ludovico Mifsud Tommasi, a poet theologian who instructed the painter on how he wanted the figures to be painted.
The people of Cospicua hold that Mgr Mifsud Tommasi, who early in the 19th century translated and composed prayers and hymns in Maltese for the common people to recite in their mother tongue, was truly inspired.
The altarpiece was crowned on 25 June, 1905, by Cardinal Domenico Ferrata as delegated by Pope St Pius X in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma. In the same year, the statue of the Immaculate Conception was sent to Milan to be covered in silver according to the design of Abram Gatt, also from Cospicua.
However, the wooden body was not retained as the statue was re-made entirely in silver, with a very intricate and ornate pedestal added on later. Fifty years later, another papal delegate, then Archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Federico Tedeschini, further enriched the painting with a halo of precious gems around Our Lady’s head on the altarpiece.
However, in the meantime World War II had decimated the population of Cospicua to just 4,000 residents.
The post-WWII years were the start of the decline of Cospicua as an important business, trade and artistic centre of the island, as a good number of its inhabitants never returned and instead settled in the towns and villages where they sought refuge during the war.
The Three Cities were heavily bombarded during the war and the Cospicua clergy decided to take the statue and altarpiece to Birkirkara for safe keeping. They made a vow that should the Collegiate Church escape undamaged, they would bring both statue and painting in a pilgrimage from St Helen’s Church, later Basilica, in Birkirkara to Cospicua.
WWII devastated Cospicua, yet luckily spared the church, and the chapter kept its promise and set the pilgrimage date for the 19 November 1944, which turned out to be a resounding success with Maltese from all walks of life turning up to thank Our Lady for protecting them during the terrible war.
This pilgrimage is celebrated annually and in 1994 the statue was taken to Birkirkara where it was kept for a week and carried back to Cospicua along the original route.
Mr Aquilina holds that the Cospicua feast unites the city’s people. “It runs in our blood. We have one feast and one band club in Cospicua. Thus, the people come together and feel they belong to a proud community, yet not in a vane sense.”
This feeling is a recurrent theme in the hymn Mr Aquilina wrote to commemorate the 1944 pilgrimage, which was set to music by Mro Raymond Sciberras, also from Cospicua. The hymn, entitled Omm Beltna, ends with the following words;
Ahna wliedek insellmulek
Indommulek l-isbah kliem
Inti Ommna f’qalbna tibqa’
Il-Bormlizi ta’ kull zmien