Appeal to Malta: Keep the faith alive!

As Easter comes round again, I am, as ever, both moved and grateful that Malta respects this incomparable event and marks it appropriately with both silence and celebration. I say, and pray, “Malta, don’t change!”

Looking at the virtual landslide decline in the practice of the Christian faith among our northern neighbours (including my own country, the United Kingdom) it could be argued that Malta is the last remaining bastion of the faith in Europe; but the question is frequently asked: for how long? We live in a culture where many rival “gods” compete for the single-minded devotion that Jesus asks of His disciples. Even church-going people, while subscribing to Christian values officially, find it difficult not to embrace, at least partly, the “creeds” of relativism and consumerism to which they are being continually exposed through a host of advertising and media channels.

The situation is not new. There has scarcely been a time in history when the Christian faith has not been proclaimed against a background of opposition – even martyrdom – in one form or another. The temptation to hibernate within the comfort zone of nominal religion has always been strong. The faith has survived only through emissaries who possessed the two requisite qualities: complete conviction coupled with sacrificial, Christlike love.

Religious adherence alone will not change the world or perpetuate the faith. While an “inherited” faith is a wonderful legacy, there is a danger that, without genuine personal belief, it becomes merely a social custom through which one is actually avoiding God, rather than the bridge to a life-changing relationship with Him. Taking God seriously is as costly as it is rewarding. It was Malta’s especially beloved St Paul – to whom Europe largely owes its Christian inheritance – whose declared aim was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings”.

While such a choice cost him everything, it also offered him, as it offers all, joy at the deepest level, lifelong adventure and challenge, and the sense both of having “come home” and yet forever travelling forward. It is those who truly share St Paul’s goal through whom the Christian faith will live on.