It has certainly been a good thing for us to be in the EU but it would be a bad thing if, as true Europeans, we fail to discover the true nature of the family and safeguard public morality for the benefit of all humanity.

So it may be helpful to recollect that St John XXIII had offered us Maltese this simple advice in 1959: “Hold together, work for progress, please God in everything“ while St John Paul II called on Malta to help in Europe’s unification from our treasure of Christian values. Mother Teresa, too, had once remarked that Malta has been given much and asked what Malta was going to give to the world.

There is a calling to the present generation to stop and see Christ and believe in Him, to embrace life in the Holy Spirit to purify human values, to find the best way forward that will sincerely promote the search for man’s best future.

Science is a gift of the Holy Ghost. In it we can discover the insight into the way we think.

Whether it be about money and the reconciliatory dimension of the euro, or about communion in family relationships, there are precious insights awaiting the new generations.

Indeed, in the complexities of modern-day family rela-tionships or in seemingly intractable intercontinental socio-economic challenges there is a simple choice before us as the starting point: to repent and believe in He who is way, truth and life.

This will inform our techno-ethic creative syntheses, our life work.

We Maltese are destined to be a laboratory of faith – in our hearts, in our relationships, in our island, in our Europe and in our world.