The announcement that Alberto Gasbarri, responsible for Papal trips, will be visiting Malta next month to explore the possibility of a visit by Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of the 1,950th anniversary of St Paul's shipwreck on these islands in 60 AD, is most welcome.
The first Pope to set foot on these islands was John Paul II, in late May 1990. The Pontiff had recalled that, at the dawn of the Christian era, the Maltese people's ancestors received the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the preaching of the Apostle Paul as he made his way to Rome.
"In the centuries that followed, the faith taught and professed in communion with the successor of Peter took firm root in the life and culture of Malta's people. It is my hope that the presence of the Bishop of Rome in your midst will recall the unique and lasting contribution which the Christian faith has made, and continues to make, in shaping your identity as a nation and fostering its growth," John Paul II had told the President.
It was a wonderful experience that united the country and developed into one of the finest pages in the nation's history.
The Holy Father himself was so impressed that, at the conclusion of the Mass he celebrated on the Floriana Granaries, he let it be known what he intended to do following his experience on these islands: "I shall return to Rome and I shall meet Paul. It is necessary to meet Paul and to tell him about Malta. I shall say: 'Paul, do you remember Malta? Do you remember that you founded a Church in Malta and I found after so many centuries that it is a wonderful Church. It is a very strong people. Malta has good Catholic people'..."
He returned in 2001, during his May 4-9 Jubilee Pilgrimage on the footsteps of St Paul. That occasion was historic also because on May 9, 2001, the Holy Father beatified Dun Ġorġ Preca, Nazju Falzon and Adeodata Maria Pisani.
It is again Paul who could bring to Malta Pope Benedict XVI, who canonised the first Maltese saint: St Ġorġ Preca.
Benedict XVI knows he will be finding a different Malta from the one John Paul II had set foot on. Indeed, he will be visiting a Maltese society that is going through a powerful cultural upheaval: an ever-growing environment of different ideas and convictions and a Church striving to identify and build the appropriate model to continue fulfilling her mission and duty in the changing circumstances, while also giving her valid and much-appreciated contribution towards the common good of the people.
The stakes are high 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. It also requires, among other things, the committed contribution of individuals who have received and embraced the newness of the Gospel in such a way as to re-express it in their daily lives, in accordance with their particular gifts and possibilities.
A Holy Father's pastoral visit would offer the Church in Malta a special opportunity to help all her sons and daughters be better aware of their mission and re-discover how the dynamism of the Gospel can penetrate and regenerate mentalities and values that inspire a changing culture and the opinions and attitudes that flow from it.