Although church was only a six minute walk from the house of Mary Fenech Adami, going to church from home and, especially, going back was always a time consuming activity.

"She used to go to the 9.00a.m. Mass and come home at 11.00a.m.", Dr Eddie Fenech Adami told Xarabank's audience a few months back with a characteristic subtle chuckle.

"If people speak to you, you speak to them", she answered in her inimitable way.

Old habits die hard, it's said. She was not ready to break this habit for her last visit to St Helen's Parish Church this morning. More people than usual wanted to speak to her. Thousands more were there to say their last hello. It was more time consuming that her daily attendance to the 9.00a.m. Mass. This morning's Mass, though, was a bitter/sweet experience. Farewells are always like that, aren't they?

Pillar of strength

I knew Mary Fenech Adami for the last forty five years or so. She was a pillar of strength in the guise of an unassuming woman.

Her guise of an unassuming woman made her approachable. Her strength, then, aided those who did approach her. A common person and a head of state generally were given by her the same kind of attention. If the common person was someone in need of help, then, that person was given more attention than a head of state. Is-Sinjura Mer, as most referred to her, loved people and people loved her. She never considered herself as someone who had more honours than others. However, she considered herself to have more duties than others as her position bestowed on her the privilege of being able to help others.

Armed with her gewlaq she regularly did her shopping at is-suq tar-rahal. She did her shopping in sunshine or in rain, during the horrendous 1980s and during the brighter days of the 1990s, when she was the wife of the Prime Minister and later (in 2003) when she became the First Lady. Like her visits to church, her visits to the suq, took more time than that needed by the manifest task in hand. They took as much time as those who wanted to speak to her needed.

The woman was strong. She stood by Eddie at the worst moments and the highest moments of his career. Both types of moments require a different kinds of strength.

"Jesus follows us"

The interpretative key to understand Mary's strength and service towards others is her faith.

During June 1994, I had the privilege to be one of the journalists that covered the visit to China of Maltese delegation headed by Prime Minister Fenech Adami. Every day I celebrated Mass for the Maltese delegation in the apartments of the Prime Minister. This was a great experience of faith. The celebration of Mass in the world's largest and almost only remaining Communist country was full of symbolism. It is an act of faith that the Risen Lord will eventually find a place in the hearts and minds of the billions that live in this wonderful country. It is a tangible sign that nothing will stop the spreading of His most loving Word. In the land celebrated for the famous Great Wall built to keep the non-Chinese hordes out it is exhilarating to celebrate Him who is the Great Bridge that will lead all people to the Father.

The Chinese personal guards of the Prime Minister who always accompanied him must have witnessed these celebrations as mind boggling. "Why on earth" they must have asked themselves "are these men and women sitting around a table drinking from one cup and sharing a little wafer when there is so much food and so many different drinks around them?"

What struck me most was a comment passed by Mary Fenech Adami. When we were at the end of the visit to China she told me: "What a beautiful experience. Christ following us from one city to another." I was struck by that sentence and have kept on mulling its theological profoundness till this day. We usually understand discipleship as "following Christ". Mary intelligently turned it upside down to bring out another dimension of our relationship with Christ. She wanted to emphasize the dimension of His loving care. He accompanies us, His disciples, on our life journey, never leaving us. He follows us much more closely than we follow Him.

Mary was not a theologian. Her statement was not the result of theological studies but of an intuition based on a living experience. Theology is after all the result of a loving heart just as much (if not more) than the work of an inquiring mind.

This experiential experience of the continuous presence of the Loving Lord was the rock on which she built her life. In thick and thin, in pain and in happiness, in victory and defeat, in glory and humiliation she knew that she was not alone. The Risen and Victorious Lord accompanied her. She also believed that He accompanied all others. She was, after all, only one of those whom the Lord accompanied. This is why she regarding all as equal to her, nay her own. This is why she had no pretensions that she was better than others. This is one she could love and serve.

From her place of rest in the bosom of the Father may she help us understand how He accompanies each and every one of us in our life journey.

May her family find strength through her new presence amongst them.