“Death reminds us of the communion between us” – Bishop Teuma

by Gozo News · November 6, 2021

Bishop of Gozo Anton Teuma today sent a message to priests for the occasion of a Mass with the suffrage of the dead priests who are members of the Society of St. Philip Neri, held this morning in the Gozo Cathedral, where they concelebrated over 60 priests with the Vicar General Mons. Tarcis Camilleri.

Bishop Anton Teuma said to his brother the priest – “Death reminds us of the communion between us.”

Bishop Teuma explained that ”due to contact with a person who tested positive for Covid earlier this week, I can’t be with you this morning. But even though I’m not with you physically, I want to I assure you that I am with you spiritually and follow this Eucharist through social media.”

In his message he said that ”death has the ability to elevate a person’s beauty and diminish his or her flaws.”

”Death has the ability to level us, make us all the same, and expose us to an illusion that often haunts us: that we are better or worse than one of our peers, that we we have a right or less a right than our peers, which we deserve more or less than our peers,” Bishop Teuma said.

He added that, ”the remembrance of our dead priestly brothers is for us that we are still here on this occasion, a call to live the priestly fraternity between us.”

The Society of Priests and Clerics under the protection of St. Philip Neri was founded by Archpriest Charlemagne in the Mother Church, with one purpose in mind – that Gozitan priests show solidarity with each other in times of need.

Accordingly, the priests had to pray for their fellows who left us by taking part in their funeral and consecrating a Mass for them after their death.

Sodality – modeled on Società di mutuo soccorso • Benefit society – was founded on the 23rd of February 1689. It had to show this solidarity in two ways; one spiritual, and another material.

The Society had, first of all, to consider the sanctification of a number of Masses each year for the deceased members; second, it also had to think of doing a proper funeral for the poor priests who neither they nor their families would get from anywhere. It also provided them with a tomb in the crypt of the priests the Cathedral.

Sodality has achieved these goals for over 300 years.