In general, we Maltese are a helpful people. We are generous, hard working, humble, careful with our money, welcoming, peaceful and unaggressive. We love our families and, especially, our children.

Evangalising, per se, is a good thing but at times it is not being explained nor is it being appreciated as a solution- David Pace O’Shea

We are quite loyal not only to our spouses but even to our friends and family. Our faith, especially in God, is a thing most of us still cherish.

It doesn’t mean that we are all like that but these are still predominant features in us Maltese.

There is obviously also a downside to us. We swear a lot, we tend to grumble and are highly politicised and not so environment friendly, we gossip, we are obese and are not avid readers.

That we may keep this little nation a better place to live in, we need to hang on to and improve the positive part while warding off the negative traits. The many investments we have drawn to our country, the strength of many of our marriages, the low level of crime and the high degree of social benefits are attributable to the values and to the way of living we have worked for along the years.

There are a number of reasons that make us who we are today but, no matter how deep rooted our good qualities are, unless we nurture them, they will not withstand the challenges of time in this fast changing global village.

Probably, our climate and long hours of sunshine do effect our moods in a positive way. The fact that we have been a nation that’s isolated on the one hand yet made up of settlers from different nations and different occupiers, has given us a better adaptation in this world.

There is, however, no denying that the Church in Malta has played a strong role in the nurturing of our nation.

For thousands of years our nation has been fed the teachings of Christ, about God as the Creator of all things, about Jesus the redeemer, about forgiveness, love, faithfulness and loyalty, tolerance, sincerity, life after this life, happiness in perseverance, trust in providence, the consequence of sin and the need to abide by the Church’s teachings.

The people, on the other hand, have far and large embraced what the Church fed.

We are today globally facing challenges to this Christian philosophy of looking at things. Not that this is something new or that started recently but it is a fact that the challanges are strong today. Malta is not isolated in this respect.

Though the sea and the ecclesial hierarchy might have been moats and bastions in other eras, nowadays they are not. To make things worse paedophilia within the priesthood, inconsistency in teachings and advice, idolatry and different forms of paganism within the Church, negative behaviour of Chrsitians themselves, boring homilies and a laissez-faire attitude to the spiritual by the parents are all leading to an erosion of the Church as an institution that would otherwise help us keep the positive traits of our nation.

The situation has deteriorated globally and while Church leaders have always sought ways of re-energ ising and re-evangalising the people of God, the present Pope has even gone as far as creating a Dicastery within the Roman Curia to understand and work on this phenomena. In Malta, the ecclesial authorites have followed and are also in pursuit of giving a new life to the good news Christ brought to the world.

Evangalising, per se, is a good thing but at times it is not being explained nor is it being appreciated as a solution. While evanglasing in the sense that God loves us and that Jesus died for us, for our salvation and that He is there, open for us to share in the experience of His presence is always the priority of the evangalising mission, it cannot stop there.

This is not like introducing a new product on the market but more like continuing a plan for a better life and afterlife that was started thousands of years ago. In a way, we are all leaders and followers in this path we have chosen and we have to examine our ways from both perspectives. The well-being of the Church and the goodness that can affect the individual and the nation should not be the concern of the religious alone but of all the universal community.

The Church started from persecuted communities, rode on the back of the Roman Empire and flourished. It established its social and spiritual institutions and dominated the politcal arena, particularly in Europe – for long years bearing a strong influence on society.

The Church has had many facets, which included educating, giving moral guidance, social support, cultural and community building and administrating besides many others that, at times, even went against the founder’s concepts.

While still very influential, it now looks more like a devotional, moral guiding and tradition keeping institution. But is this what it was meant to be? Was the mission of the Church only intended to be limited to a spiritual well-being of the people or was it intended to enter the fabric of society and build a borderless nation? Are we as Catholics only to be Catholics in the spiritual and devotional domain or should we encrypt our values in every aspect of our lives – be them political, fiscal entertainment or a relationship.

In a world that has come a long way and that carries a very heavy baggage of experiences, the Church can easily turn into a dinasour insitution that looks like something of the past. It can, on the other hand, rejuvenate itself. It can prove to society that it not only fulfills a spiritual role but a social one as well; if its members did not consider themselves as pilgrims in an alien world but co-creators in an awesome universe.

If we appreciated that Christ did not come just for our salvation from hell but also to build a kingdom to be defined by the qualities we find in his teachings. If we undersood that the Church is not just the people at the Curia or the priests and nuns but that it is we as a people with good intent and followers of Christ, then I believe that the calling would be a strong one again.

In the past there were those who protested and split the union that Christ idealised about. Others rejuvenated themselves to rejuvenate the whole. In the face of so many adversities, of global volatility, of worries and let downs and suffering we need to strengthen our union as a people of God and cherish our heritage.

Be it the Pope, the Bishops, priest or laity, all those whose heart resonates with the calling need to respond.

Malta might not be a utopia and our religion might not have solved our problems but it definitely gave us a way of living that reflects itself in our identity.