Gozo Bishop Anton Teuma issued a Pastoral Note on the Occasion of the Coming Among Us of the Miraculous Crucifix of Ta’ Giezu and of the Jubilee Pilgrimage on the First Sunday of Lent.

The Pastoral Note is shown in full below:

Dear Friends,

“In a few days we will begin Holy Lent. It is a time that leads us to live the mystery of the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and at the same time, of each one of us. It is a time that must help us focus on the fact that we are loved by God and on the call we have to love one another – a call that Jesus reiterated in the Gospel we heard (see Lk 6:27-38).

This great love of God for us can be contemplated in Jesus Crucified: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down their life for their friends” (Jn 15:13); “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

In this year of the Jubilee of Hope, the beginning of Lent will be a special one for all of us. After each of us celebrates the First of Lent in our parishes and churches, our Diocese will have the grace to welcome the Miraculous Crucifix venerated in the Church of Ta’ Giezu in Valletta.

The Crucifix will be exposed for our veneration at the Church of St. Anthony of Padova, Ghajnsielem, from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th of March.

Then, on Sunday 9 March, at 4.00pm we will all gather together – all of Gozo – to make the Jubilee Pilgrimage: we will all walk – priests, religious and lay people – following Jesus Crucified, from the Church of St. Anthony to the Parvis of the Archpriestly Church of Ghajnsielem.

There we will have a precious celebration in which we will listen to the Word of God and give Community Adoration to the Holy Cross. On that day, each parish will organise transport to the Church of St. Anthony, so that everyone can participate.

On that day, there will also be no Masses in the parishes and other churches of Gozo between 4.00pm and 7.00pm. On the days when the Miraculous Crucifix is ??exposed for veneration, one can obtain the Plenary Indulgence under the conditions required for a visit of veneration in the Church or if one takes part in the Pilgrimage.

“They will look on him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37). Like the women of the Gospel, who stood looking at the Crucified from afar (cf. Mt 27:55), we all need to fix our eyes on the dead body of Jesus. Even if, as Isaiah states, “his face was so marred that he was not a man, and you did not consider his form as a man” (52:14), Jesus Crucified is the most beautiful image of God who “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Lk 6:35), he who loved us who were his enemies, did good to those who crucified him, and who from the cross prayed for those who reviled him (cf. Lk 6:27-28).

Let us follow him and stop to look at him, so that, as the holy Dun ?or? Preca tells us, we may take from him the teaching of eternal life.”

+ Anton Teuma

Bishop of Gozo

Photo: Diocese of Gozo

Permalink: Pastoral Note – “They will look on him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37)