Malta today celebrates the 1,950th anniversary of the shipwreck of St Paul on these islands, in AD 60. It is doing so as preparations are well in hand for the upcoming pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI who will mark the same historic occasion.
These are special times for the Church in Malta and for society. They offer the prospect of looking back on what St Paul's coming to Malta meant for so many Maltese generations over the centuries. Yet, even more important, they should be deemed as a special opportunity for the Church and the people to examine where they stand today and what should be the way ahead if society wants to continue building on the values brought by the Apostle Paul.
The challenges, perhaps first and foremost those resulting from the pressures of a secular age, are there. In fact, also in Malta, secularism challenges the Church to reaffirm and to pursue more actively her mission in and to today's society.
Pope Benedict is on record stating that, in a society that rightly values personal liberty, the Church needs to ensure that, at every level of her teaching - in catechesis, preaching, seminary and University instruction, the Gospel is preached and taught as an integral way of life, offering an attractive and true answer, intellectually and practically, to real human problems.
The Church in Malta may agree that, today more than yesterday, she has to face the challenge of presenting the Catholic vision of reality in an engaging and imaginative way to a society that markets so many recipes for human fulfilment.
One thinks, in particular, of the need to speak to young people, keeping in mind that, despite their constant exposure to messages contrary to the Gospel, in their heart of hearts the new generations continue to show thirst for authenticity, goodness and truth.
It is therefore good to note that the Church is reserving and dedicating particular focus on young people in her preparations for the Holy Father's visit. The Diocesan Commission for Youth is conducting what has been defined as a young people's pilgrimage through various localities with replicas of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon, aimed at encouraging every Christian, lay person, consecrated or religious, to reflect on and prepare for the Pope's visit.
Much work would need to be done, for instance, on the level of preaching and catechesis in parishes, towards a renewed evangelisation that bears fresh fruit. There appear to be two particular preoccupations that would need to be addressed. The first is the deepening of the Christian identity on the part of those who associate themselves as members of the Church. Pope John Paul II once said that this is an identity that needs to be translated in a solid spirituality, which invests all of one's personal and social life and is anchored on the revealed truth, not just on subjective or emotive attitudes. The second is the re-evangelisation of those who have lost contact with the community and with Christian values and with those who act as though God did not exist.
As The Times has already had occasion to point out, the stakes are decisive for the Church's evangelisation activity.
It requires full spiritual courage to insert anew the force of the Gospel leaven, and its newness, which is younger than anything modern, into the very heart of the profound challenges of our time. St Paul's example and teaching should serve as a most appropriate and sound inspiration.