'A gaze toward providence'
Publisher: Editions du Signe / Eckbolsheim, Strasbourg / 2023
Pages: 123pp
There are two neighbourly parishes in Malta that share a common past. Msida and Hamrun had a patron saint which they changed.
Msida originally had a small chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. However, its patronage was later changed to St Joseph, and he has remained the town's patron saint ever since.
My unchecked information is that this change came as a result of pressure, possibly financial help too, by the brother of Blessed Nazju Falzon, Kalcidon, who was a priest. This happened during the episcopate of Bishop Gaetano Pace Forno.
It was certainly this same bishop who caused Hamrun to change its patron saint.
Hamrun, not yet a parish then, was dedicated to St Joseph - its main street was, and still is, dedicated to St Joseph. However, it had no church.
When the people of the locality tried to build a church, they ran out of funds. Enter the same bishop who insisted that in recompense the new church must be dedicated to his patron saint. Hence St Gaetan.
This saint was not completely unknown in Malta - there is a small chapel outside Marsaskala, an altar in St Paul's church in Valletta and some other altars dedicated to the saint dating back to the times of the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation in which the saint had been influential.
The people of Hamrun took to the "new" saint with characteristic gusto - San Gejtanu's festa is one of the most popular festas of the summer season.
This book that I am reviewing today was published by the Order of the Theatines, the order co-founded by St Gaetan, and was personally given to me by the head of the Order, Superior General Fr Salvador Rodea Gonzalez CR when he visited me at the home where I now live.
I am writing this review not at his request but to thank him for his visit and the gift of the book.
The book is quite colourful and includes many of the paintings of the saint from the church of San Andrea della Valle in central Rome and that of San Paolo Maggiore in what is called the Spanish Quarter in central Naples where the saint died and is buried.
In fact, one of the chapters of this book describes the Tesoro associated with the church, which is not to be confused with the far richer Tesoro of San Gennaro which I read somewhere is richer than that of the Queen of England (there is also a comic film on this).
The Tesoro associated with St Gaetan has a long history and was many times sacked and rebuilt by the dedicated members of the Order. It contains only one bone relic of the saint, a molar, but also an autographical letter written by the saint in which he describes the vision immortalised in the Hamrun church in the statue and the painting by Gagliardi of the Blessed Virgin appearing to him one Christmas Eve and presenting the Infant Baby to him.
Two other articles are dense theological studies, while the final contribution focuses on a very modern and colourful church that the Order has in Mexico.
In fact, while the Order no longer maintains a religious presence in Malta and has experienced a gradual decline in Italy, it continues to sustain a significant and flourishing presence throughout Latin America.