Bishop of Gozo Mgr Anton Teuma has issued a Pastoral Letter at the start of the Pastoral Year 2022-23 – “And Jesus explained the Scriptures to them” (Lk 24:27).

The Pastoral Letter is shown in full below.

My dear brethren parish-priests, priests, religious, Gozitan Christians and foreigners living among us,

Summer is over and we are starting a new Pastoral Year. This year, from today to the coming summer, is being dedicated to the listening to the Word of God. We Christians are in great need of listening to the Word of God. The Word of God helps us understand that our life of faith is above all else a loving relationship with Jesus.

When we become aware that faith is a relationship with Jesus, we begin to understand that to believe is not a burden but a gift; that to participate in the Sunday Eucharist is not a yoke but a feast; that to pray is not a duty but a meeting with a sincere friend; that to help out is not a sacrifice but an act of love to your benefactor.

The Emmaus event (Lk 24:13-35)

As they were returning to Emmaus, the disciples told Jesus about their frustrations and failures. And he listened to them. At one point he pointed out to them in no uncertain terms: “How foolish you are, how slow you are to believe everything the prophets said!” (Lk 24:25). This led them eventually to recognise him in the Breaking of the Bread. Can we not today meet with Jesus through listening to his Word and the Eucharist?

His Holiness’ invitation to us at Ta’ Pinu

His Holiness’ visit among us closely resembles Jesus joining the forlorn disciples on their way to Emmaus. After listening to their woes he emphatically delivered his powerful Word. In his Address at Ta’ Pinu on the 2nd of April 2022, His Holiness gave us a very clear mandate. He enjoined us to be an evangelising Church, “because the joy of the Church is to evangelise.”

The Pope reiterates that everything started with the hour of defeat, the death of Jesus on the Cross. What looked like the end was in fact the beginning of the Church. This also obtains in the history of Ta’ Pinu Sanctuary. The wayward chapel in a dilapidated state and destined to be profaned was transformed into a sanctuary, a source of faith and kiss of mercy to Malta and Gozo.

Last year’s Pastoral Plan: “What are you talking about?”

Like the disciples of Emmaus we are more or less confused. The examination of conscience which we conducted last year and the survey carried out by a group of young people who are involved in the diocesan media as well as the general feeling attest to the fact that our times are particularly stressful and delicate.

Faith does not occupy any longer the first place in the life of a good number among us. The number of those who attend Sunday Mass is diminishing gradually. Those who attend are in their majority elderly people; a good number of youths have abandoned the Church and lost their faith in her. Families who pray at home are a handful.

The members who frequent ecclesial movements and groups of catechises are quite advanced in age and their number is dwindling, particularly following the pandemic. The groups of volunteers who gravitate around the village festa are facing challenges as well.

In spite of the growing indifference and slowing down in one’s life of faith, the Pope’s call to evangelisation has not fallen on deaf ears! This emerges quite clearly from the collective examination of conscience carried out at all levels of the local Church last year. We can safely say that the People of God on our island yearns for occasions which facilitate the listening to and understanding better the Word of God.

And He started to explain the Scriptures

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1).

The opening of the Gospel according to John clearly recalls the Book of Genesis. The “beginning” referred to by Genesis and John does not merely indicate the first moments of history, but the cause of history.

It is the “beginning” which creates and generates all that subsequently came into being. At the origin of every existing being lies the contact between the Word of God and chaos. It is the Word of God which can move our hearts to encounter Jesus and assign him his rightful place in our lives.

A Word which creates

Jesus likens the Word to a “man (who) scatters seed in his field. He sleeps at night, is up and about during the day, and all the while the seeds are sprouting and growing. Yet he does not know how it happens. The soil itself makes the plants grow and bear fruit; first the tender stalk appears, then the ear, and finally the ear full of corn. When the corn is ripe, the man starts cutting it with his sickle, because harvest time has come” (Mk 4:26-29).

The Word is Jesus himself (cfr Jn 1:14) who in him, through him and for him everything was created and is sustained (cfr Col 1:15-16). The Word is Jesus and every time we listen to it, it is born in us and bonds us with him: Christians. The Word, together with the Sacraments, is the privileged way through which the Holy Spirit continues to create the Christian communities, that is, the Church in our times.

This Word has the power to create new Christians and communities of faith even in our localities today. Contemporary man feels perhaps more than ever before the need for direction and orientation. The Word of God on one hand helps to discern God’s will for him and on the other hand, while he becomes aware of and carries out this will, he understands who he really is, in other words who he is in the eyes of his Creator.

A Word which heals

The publicans and sinners felt cut off from God because of the condemnation and lack of acceptance by those who somehow represented the institutional structures of religion. Jesus with his bearing and words touched the hearts of these deeply wounded people and helped them feel welcome and loved. This was Matthew’s the tax collector, the Samaritan woman’s, Zaccheus’ and other sinners’ experience as recounted in the Gospel.

There are not a few who were close to the Church and because of some reason felt aggrieved and consequently drifted away from the life of faith and at times even spurned God and all he stands for.

A number of men and women suffered due to sexual abuse, whether moral or physical, at the hands of those who were supposed to show them love, mercy, tenderness and maternal and paternal attention.

It can only be the Word of God which fills the heart of those who are sent to proclaim it so that it can revive the hope and initiate a process of healing in those whose hearts have been ravished and broken.

A Word which inspires

At the same time it seems that many of us who adhere to practises of a religious life experience tiredness, a sense of weariness and lack of enthusiasm. It seems that for many of us who still frequent Sunday Mass, and attend our group meetings and send our children to catechism lessons in our parishes, do so out of custom without understanding deeply the real significance of our actions, thus without committing ourselves seriously to be authentic disciples of Jesus.

This situation worsened during the pandemic. Many who frequented the Church as a custom realised that they could do without it and since they never took a proper personal decision regarding their faith, it did not take much for them to abandon the practice of the faith.

The coming to our island of many foreigners with their particular mindsets and different beliefs could further weaken the convictions of our faith which up till now were more of a social phenomena than proper personal and ecclesial commitments.

This Word helps us to discern what is pastoral and what is just folklore – in spite of the substantial number of participants, the “folkoristic” must to be baptised, catechised and Christianised. It is the Word of God which helps us to live our religiosity with ever deepening mature faith.

The power of the Word

Can the Word of God truly give life, heal and inspire?

Yes, it can! Many Gozitan Christians who have dedicated time to listen to the Word attest to this. There are various groups in our parishes who meet to listen to the Word of God and reflect upon it to live it out. They can witness to how the Word of God helped them intensify their beautiful experience of the faith.

I strongly and heartily entreat you all Gozitan Christians to accept the invitation which the parish- priests and clergy are extending in your respective parishes this year to attend any of the groups to reflect upon the Word of God. It is the most nourishing food that together with the Eucharist you rightly expect from us. It is the most nourishing food which we are empowered by God to provide you with.

+ Anton Teuma, Bishop of Gozo

Mgr Edward Zammit, Chancellor

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