As a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church making regular visits with my wife from the UK to Gozo for holiday and to visit Gozitan friends, I have been blessed in assisting Bishop Mario Grech at a First Communion celebration in St George’s, Victoria in May and at a Holy Eucharist feast in Marsalforn on August 17. In exposition and adoration at the Clarissi Convent too I have had the opportunity to exercise my ministry, which I was ordained to in June 2013.

During the procession in Marsalforn following concelebrated Mass, I was very impressed by the number of people who came out of their residences on to the pavements, genuflecting in reverence to the Blessed Sacrament as it passed by.

Residents also came out onto balconies and among the crowds in the street one could see several people with disabilities. I understand that, this year, a record number of people took part in the Festa tas-Sajf in Marsalforn.

In the Gozo Bishop I see a pastor who appears comfortable in both formal liturgies and when among the laity at a social level. In the bishop and in the parish priests in both Xagħra, our ‘home parish’, and in Marsalforn I see shining examples of priests in charge who do not ‘lord it over the laity’, to use Fr Joe Borg’s words, but who organise by engaging children, young people and adults in their respective pastoral communities. I am sure there will be other examples I am not familiar with.

I wish to thank the Gozo churches for making us so very welcome over the years. It is upon such a foundation stone of friendship that we build our Church, the Pauline concept of the Body of Christ.

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