Presently the peace enveloping the Jesuit-run Mount St Joseph retreat house is threatened, due to plans for a shooting range very close by.
Retreat houses, like schools, form an integral part of Jesuit history. One may wonder what they were created for in the first place.
In 1522, St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, went through a deep spiritual experience at Manresa near Barcelona: he felt God extremely close, receiving great enlightenment. His masterpiece, the little book entitled The Spiritual Exercises, reflects that experience.
Then a layman, Ignatius started helping people go through the series of meditations and contemplations that God had put him through.
The Exercises, written in Spanish, were closely scrutinised by Church authorities and, in a refined Latin translation, were formally approved by Pope Paul III in 1548.
In the Exercises, Ignatius advises retreatants to “withdraw from all friends and acquaintances, and from all secular preoccupations”. Seclusion frees heart and mind to concentrate in silence solely on God the creator and Lord.
Ignatius and the first Jesuits gave retreats on a one-to-one basis, and the places where retreatants sought seclusion varied as circumstances permitted. As demand grew, there was a veritable retreat movement already in the 17th century. This in turn led to the sprouting up of purpose-built retreat houses.
In Malta the first retreat house was San Calcedonio in Floriana: it still exists as the older part of the building that is now the Archbishop’s Curia. Built by the Jesuits, it opened in 1751. After 1768, it was run by the diocesan clergy.
Sculptor Vincent Apap’s original 19-foot concrete statue of St Joseph that adorns the facade of the retreat house, had to be replaced by a fibreglass replica in 2008.In Gozo, in the 19th century, a similar retreat house just outside Victoria was built by the diocese. It is known as Manresa House. Its running was entrusted to the Jesuits by Bishop Giuseppe Pace in 1953.
The Maltese Jesuits, set up as a province in 1947, started thinking of having their own retreat house on the larger island in the 1950s. Under provincial Fr Anthony Savona SJ, land was acquired at Biżbiżija, close to Mosta.
The retreat house project was carried forward when Fr Maurice Eminyan SJ was provincial. Archbishop Michael Gonzi backed the project throughout, blessing and inaugurating Mount St Joseph on December 20, 1964.
Mount St Joseph was designed by leading architect Carmelo Falzon. Considered one of the finest examples of Modernist architecture in Malta, it is a scheduled building.
Chev. Emvin Cremona was responsible for the designs of the beautiful wrought-iron works and the lighting of the corridors. Sculptor Vincent Apap created the original 19-foot statue of St Joseph that adorns the facade of the house.
Fr Joseph Orr SJ, detailed to oversee works, and Fr Salvino Darmanin SJ, the first community superior, worked tirelessly on the project. Immense credit goes to the Jesuit brothers who used their energy and skills to contribute to the building of the house: their work included stone-quarrying, masonry, plumbing, electricity and carpentry. Among them, Bro Paul Spiteri SJ survives, while others have passed on to eternal life, like Jesuits brothers Salvatore Gauci, Ġużeppi Farrugia, Michael Spiteri and Salvu Fenech.
Beyond its value in a religious context, silence has also acquired an important social meaning. Our stressful life and the awful level of noise pollution leads to a deep yearning for peace and quiet
Countless benefactors financed the project, foremost among them Carmelo Borg. Many sponsored a retreatant’s room. Benefactors’ generosity, making retreats possible, was surely richly rewarded by the good Lord.
Large and small groups of retreatants have used the premises for 50 years now.
The house is surrounded by a large garden where people can spend quiet time with the Lord in beautiful natural surroundings.
In 2006, when Fr Paul Chetcuti was provincial and Fr Alfred Micallef was community superior, the house received a facelift that included en suite facilities in rooms, while ensuring that its architectural design was carefully preserved. In 2008, Apap’s statue of St Joseph, executed in concrete, had decayed to the point that it had to be replaced by a replica in fibreglass.
Retreats vary in length, usually ranging from eight days to a weekend. ‘Preached’ retreats provide participants with material for periods of personal prayer. Often, however, retreats are ‘directed’, with a daily one-to-one encounter with the retreat guide, so that the individual’s spiritual needs are more easily catered for.
A very essential element of an Ignatian retreat is silence. When visiting Nazareth in 1964, Pope Paul VI expressed the hope that the silence of the Holy Family’s home would teach our contemporaries: “Recollection, inwardness, the disposition to listen to good inspirations and the teachings of true masters… the need for and the value of preparation, of study, of meditation, of personal inner life, of the prayers which God alone sees in secret.” Paul VI was talking not only to contemplative religious but also to the rank and file Catholic, to busy parents and working people.
Silence is a condition that allows a retreatant to enter into more immediate contact with God and with his or her inner self. For the deep religious experience of God envisaged by St Ignatius in the Exercises, silence remains indispensable.
However, beyond its value in a religious context, silence has also acquired an important social meaning. Our stressful life and the awful level of noise pollution leads to a deep yearning for peace and quiet.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, then Jesuit archbishop of Milan, once said people left that big city every weekend for the mountains to the north because they consciously or subconsciously sensed they badly needed to slow down and be quiet. They needed to escape stress and noise pollution.
The role of Mount St Joseph has clearly evolved. It now has both a strictly religious and a social function. Many visitors to Mount St Joseph will be seeking a religious experience, for which silence is essential. Others, however, will benefit from the silent surroundings to breathe, rest and search for meaning in life. The house thus contributes to the general well-being of its over 9,000 yearly visitors.
It would be beneficial all round if this house, offering peace and quiet in a natural environment, can be preserved for everyone in the years to come.
Fr Robert Soler is a member of the Society of Jesus.