Discover the treasures in our churches

View the panorama from the ramparts at Mdina and you will be struck by the numerous steeples and domes that dot the landscape.

The vista at night is completely different, as street lights are switched on and the façades of several churches are lit up by a thousand bulbs, making them look like giant pieces of jewellery finished in electric filigree, not the mention the numerous blue neon lights that hang precariously from atop flag masts.

The scene is a common one during the hectic summer feast season, which demonstrates the deep devotion the Maltese display for the main religious shrine in their neighbourhoods.

The parish churches in particular are indeed treasure troves of works of art including paintings, marble and stone carvings, wood and papier maché statues and gold and silver artefacts.

During the festa period these churches don their Sunday best for the admiration of visitors and parishioners alike.

In order to give the public a glimpse of these treasures, Pubblikazzjonijiet Indipendenza (PIN) has just published the third volume in the series Tezori fil-Knejjes Malta - Treasures in Maltese Churches, which features Attard, Balzan and Lija.

The editor of the series is Tony Terribile, who has been collecting information about churches and other ecclesiastical data for the past 30 years.

There are in all over 400 churches and chapels in Malta and Gozo. To make the series as accessible to as many readers as possible, each volume has a Maltese and an English text. The hard bound edition sells for Lm19 and the soft cover one for Lm17.50.

Mr Terrible's research takes the reader through the history of each parish from the very early stages.

In the case of Attard, he recounts how the apostolic visitor Mgr Pietro Dusina, while on a pastoral visit to Malta, called at Attard on February 1, 1575.

In that distant past, there were 165 households in Attard, 30 at Hal Mann and 15 at another hamlet nearby called Bordi.

Mgr Dusina united the three hamlets into one parish dedicating it to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

Other intriguing historical snippets can be gleaned from the chapels and adjoining museums around Attard, Lija and Balzan.

In the museum by the church of the Miraculous Virgin Mary in Lija, popularly known as tal-Mirakli, are a series of ex-voto paintings recalling incidents in the life of a number of people who claim they had escaped death after praying to the Madonna.

Ex voto paintings are mementoes of the faith these people had in the powers of intercession of the Holy Mother.