In a joint Pastoral Letter issued today, Malta’s bishops said: “the liturgical period of Advent and Christmas brings to mind the expectation and the coming of our Lord among us”.

The Bishops wrote: “As we read in the first paragraph of the Letter to the Hebrews: ‘At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. (Heb. 1, 1-2)’.”

“In one sentence, the father of our faith, St Paul, sums up the significance of the feasts which we will celebrate in the coming weeks: ‘but when the appointed time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born a subject of the Law (Ga. 4, 4)’.”

“In his letter to the Christians of Ephesus, a city in Turkey, St Paul described the love which Jesus Christ has for the Church and for all of us, using the beautiful metaphor of marriage: ‘Husbands should love their wives, just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy. He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words, so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless. In the same way, husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself. A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church, because it is his Body – and we are its living parts. For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body. This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church. To sum up: you too, each one of you, must love his wife as he loves himself; and let every wife respect her husband (Ep. 5, 25-33)’.”