By Pierre Azzopardi, Sun Dreams Travel

Missing the forest for the trees is one of life’s proverbial dangers. Getting saddled in routine is an easy way to lose your sense of direction and the significance of your activities. This happens all too easily in modern industrial societies, despite or even because of their great material wealth. Family, working and social relations get fragmented to the point that you can even come to question the meaningfulness of your existence. The networks of family, local community and close friends that provided such strong counsel and practical help in the past have been disrupted and you’re left to rely mostly on personal resources.

So sometimes it becomes necessary to distance yourself from daily routine and seize the chance to delve into your soul and remind yourself of what really counts in life. The best way to succeed at this is to put yourself amid a community that, although it belongs to the 21st century in terms of its economic development, has not lost the traditional values of family and social solidarity rooted in a millennial past. Such is the island-nation of Malta.

In the Maltese Islands, the rhythm of life is still embedded in Christian ritual and its patterns formed by Christian belief. The Maltese undoubtedly claim that the source of their festive approach to life and of the courage and co-operation with which they face its problems and difficulties is their Christian faith.

Christianity has almost 2,000 years of history in Malta. It was brought to the island by no one less than the Apostle Paul in 60 A.D. St. Luke described the circumstances in chapters 27 and 28 of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul was being taken to Rome to be tried as a political rebel, but the ship was wrecked on the island. The evangelist underlined the unusual hospitality with which the Maltese greeted the crew and the prisoners during the winter they were forced to spend on the island. The Maltese did not follow the usual practice of plundering or exploiting the victims of a shipwreck.

Perhaps this natural sense of brotherhood and solidarity explains why they were so ready and open to accept the gospel of Christian charity preached by St. Paul. According to local tradition, the governor of the island, Publius, became its first bishop.

In the forging of the Maltese character, it is difficult not to believe that environmental conditions played no part. The archipelago’s two main islands, Malta and Gozo, are rather arid rocks, making survival a constant struggle. The need to resist pirates and foreign occupants exacting loot and taxes aggravated the difficulty. But these challenges only served to strengthen the islanders’ solidarity and trust in God.

Indeed, Malta and Gozo seem to have been sacred islands even in prehistoric times. Many huge megalithic temples, some well over 5,000 years old, appear to have been places of pilgrimage. Foreigners as well as the local people came to commune with a goddess, probably representing the Great Earth Mother, symbol of fertility, and to consult her oracle and even seek cures for their illnesses.

These temples, marvels of construction before the discovery of metals or the wheel, are the oldest examples of architecture in the world, since they were designed and built as free-standing monuments. They are not adapted natural caves and are older than the pyramids of Egypt. They are evidence of the physical and spiritual strength of a mysterious, prehistoric people, whose artistic achievement remains as an invitation and propitious environment in which to ask the timeless questions about the meaning of existence. (For a further discussion of these temples, be sure to  read “Malta’s Monolithic Temples in the January 2003 issue of The Cultured Traveler.)

That was the first golden age of Maltese culture. A second, which also constitutes a glorious part of the common heritage of mankind, occurred with the advent of the Knights of the Order of St. John, in the 16th century A.D. The Order had been established in 1076 in Jerusalem to provide care, first medical, then military, to pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Knights had been driven out from several strongholds. and soon after their coming to Malta, they were forced to defend the island against the forces of the Turkish prince, Suleiman the Magnificent, in the Great Siege of 1565. The defeat of the Turks was a turning point that probably changed the fate of Europe.

The collective memory of the Maltese has retained the historic epic of 1565 as a parable of the human condition: a state of siege by adverse forces to be overcome by solidarity and trust in God, a perilous experience to be undergone with courage and sacrifice, leading to a joyous end in festivity, a complement to the odyssey of St. Paul.

The Maltese Islands are studded with symbols expressive of the people’s thankfulness for past graces and faith in the future. Great creativity has gone into the construction of more than 330 churches and innumerable works of art, especially of the Baroque era, including the great masterpieces by Caravaggio in St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. There are other large churches, such as St. Paul’s Cathedral in the old capital, Mdina, which are impressive by any standards. But perhaps even more impressive are the small, wayside chapels, a distinctive mark of the Maltese landscape, some excavated from the rock, others decorated with medieval  frescoes, most of them with a rustic baroque character that invites quiet contemplation and peace in the silent environment.

One of them is sited at the traditional spot where St. Paul baptized the first Maltese and is called "San Pawl Milqi" ("St. Paul Welcomed’).

Even the less religiously inclined do not easily escape the meditative spell of the Maltese context. As one walks upon the incredible floor in the "Co-Cathedral," made up of tessellated slabs laid over the tombs of the Knights and other celebrated figures who had their fill of earthly glory, one can sense the acute consciousness in the Baroque era of the mirroring of the eternal by the ephemeral.

“Ex voto" (Latin for “out of thankfulness”) donations are an age-old custom in Malta and Gozo which have lived on till the present day. These donations are the fulfillment of a vow made by the donator in gratitude for the grace granted by God or the help granted by a saint in a very difficult situation in life. They are symbols of the donors’ firm believe in God and their unshakeable faith in his future guidance. Ex voto donations can be seen in many of Malta’s churches. The oldest are several hundred years old. An interesting and rich collection of ex voto donations referring to the daily perils at sea can be admired at the Museum annexed to the Church of "Our Lady of Graces" in Zabbar and in the Church of "Ta Pinü" in Gozo.

Both Malta and Gozo are a wellspring of inspiration for coping with the problems of life with invincible trust.