The 50th anniversary of the death of Maltese Saint Ġorġ Preca will be commemorated this Thursday (26 July) with a Mass celebrated by Monsignor Lawrence Gatt at the MUSEUM premises in Blata l-Bajda, at 6.30pm.
Gozo Bishop Mario Grech will celebrate mass at the Ta’ Pinu Sanctuary on Friday.
To mark the occasion, MaltaPost is issuing an Occasion Card and a special hand postmark. There will also be an art exhibition by Joseph Pulo at the MUSEUM premises in Blata l-Bajda.
St Ġorġ, who was the founder of the Society of Christian Doctrine, MUSEUM, was born in Valletta on 12 February 1880. After completing his studies at the Lyceum, he entered the Seminary with the aim of becoming a priest.
From a young age, he felt he was chosen by God to teach His people. Before being ordained priest, he met a group of young people in his home town of Ħamrun and invited them to start attending his spiritual meetings. He set his eye on their leader, Eugenio Borġ, and started explaining the Gospel of John to him. Later on, Eugenio became the first Superior General of the MUSEUM Society.
A few months before his ordination to the priesthood, Ġorġ Preca almost died of a very serious illness, as a result of which his left lung was permanently damaged. He was ordained priest on 22 December 1906 by Bishop Pietro Pace, and he celebrated his first Solemn Mass at St Gaetan’s Parish Church in Ħamrun on Christmas Day.
For a number of weeks after his ordination Dun Ġorġ, as he was known, would not venture out of his home except to say Mass, after which he would retire to a small room on the roof and remain there all day in meditation and contemplation.
The small group of young people he used to bring together eventually rented a small place in Fra Diegu Street, Ħamrun and met there for the first time on 7 March 1907. This was the beginning of the MUSEUM Society – a group of lay people leading an exemplary life, who are well-versed in the principles of the Catholic faith and who teach the faith to people.
It was around 1910 when Dun Gorg had a very powerful experience to which he always referred as “the extraordinary vision of the child Jesus”.
One morning, he was walking near the Marsa Cross when he suddenly saw a boy aged about 12 pushing a low cart loaded with a bag full of manure. The boy turned to the priest and ordered him imperiously: “Lend me a hand!” The moment Fr Gorg put his hand on the cart he felt an extraordinary spiritual sweetness and he could never remember where they went or what happened to the young boy.
He believed the boy was Jesus and that the Lord was asking him and his followers to help him nurture the Lord’s field and vineyard with sound doctrine and formation.
Dun Ġorġ Preca worked unceasingly to spread the values and teaching of the Gospel in the Maltese Islands. He wrote a great number of books in Maltese on subjects such as dogma, morality and spirituality. He also published numerous booklets with prayers for his members and for popular devotion. He was undoubtedly a great apostle of the Word of God, especially of the Gospel, which he used to call “The Voice of the Beloved”.
People flocked to him for advice or a word of encouragement. They trusted in his intercession and many recounted stories of healing through Fr Ġorġ’s prayers. He was endowed with many supernatural gifts.
Dun Gorg is well known for his constant efforts to promote devotion to the mystery of the Incarnation. From 1917 he propagated devotion for the text from St John’s Gospel: “Verbum Dei caro factum est!” (Jn 1, 14) and to this day, MUSEUM members still wear a badge bearing these words.
On Christmas Eve 1921, the society organised the first ‘Display of the Child Jesus’ in the towns and villages of Malta and Gozo and this event has since become a typical aspect of Christmas celebrations on the islands. Dun Gorg wanted every child who attended catechism classes to take home a small crib or statue of the baby Jesus for Christmas.
On 19 May 1951 he blessed the foundation stone of St Michael’s School in Santa Venera, and in 1952 he sent the first members to launch the Society in Australia. Today the Christian Doctrine Society is also found in England, Albania, the Sudan, Kenya, Peru and elsewhere.
After a long and very active life of Christian teaching, Dun Ġorġ Preca died on 26 July 1962 at his house San Cajetan, in Parish Street, Santa Venera.
He had wished for a very simple funeral but thousands flocked to pay him homage before he was buried in the crypt of the Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal at Blata l-Bajda.
Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed him a Saint in June 2007 and his liturgical feast is celebrated on 9 May.