To commemorate Victory Day, as is customary every year on the eve of the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, a Solemn Pontifical Mass was held at the Basilica of the Virgin Mary in Xaghra, conducted for the first time by the new Bishop of Gozo Mons. Anton Teuma, who also hails from the village of Xaghra.

Among those who attended on Monday evening, President Dr George Vella, Prime Minister Dr. Robert Abela, and Dr Adrian Delia, Leader of the Opposition, as well as the Angel Farrugia, Speaker of the House and many members of parliament from both sides of the House.

Bishop Teuma spoke about the victories of 1565, 1800 and 1943 that we commemorate every year on -Victory Day.

“But I think this celebration would be poor if we continue to rekindle in ourselves feelings of superiority and anger, hidden under a false sense of patriotism, and congratulate ourselves on these achievements,” said Bishop Teuma.

“If today we have to celebrate, it is only our faith in the person of Jesus… joy because the Word of the Gospel has remained among us. And they remained among us not so much because our ancestors won the wars, but because they worked and strived to keep this social and cultural heritage part of the fabric of the Maltese and Gozitan people,” he said.Bishop Anton reminded how God is with man and wants to save him, as evidenced by the gospel announced on this feast (Mt 1: 1-16,18-23) which gives the genealogy of Jesus and includes specially the names of four sinful and foreign women who abused power, precisely to show that “God saves man from the systems of exploitation, in the complex history of man, and proposes a new humanity – a realised man.”

“It is not enough for me a Bishop to know how to speak about God, but I need to live what I know… It is not enough for a parish, a nursing home or a Church school to guarantee the teaching of the faith. They want to create an environment where our children and the elderly experience faith,” said Bishop Teuma.

Bishop Teuma warned that “we will impoverish education in our country if we limit the Christian educational proposal only to information about the faith given in the lesson of Religion.”

“The law is equal for all,” he said, “but it will not be of service to man if he treats everyone equally. The Christian educational proposal is made up of relationships, attitudes, desires, fears, purposes, which go far beyond the lesson of Religion. Equality is true when you respect and embrace differences, not when you level them up.”Bishop Teuma went on to say that “we will focus on man when we level the differences of his identity, character, values, and personality and reduce him to a source of information – that is, to what he has studied – in the function of the workplace. And this under the pretext of equality.”

In his homily, the Bishop concluded that “when we do not accept difference, we leave one with a sense of inferiority and the other we imagine a threat, and thus a sense of anger is created, where we hide under equality, to level and impoverish to everyone.”

This was the first formal occasion in which Bishop Anton Teuma addressed the leaders of the Maltese State, since consecrated Pastor of the Diocese of Gozo on the 21st of August.

Photos: MGOZ

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