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Easter in Malta
This time of the year is one of the most exciting, colourful and appealing periods of the year. It's the time when the Maltese culture comes out fully alive to the satisfaction and surprise of the many tourists who happen to be around.
Inside the churches, celebrations become truly alive as they make an exception and take a different approach where colours, ornaments, flowers and an unusually high dose of emotions take place.
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Lent starts on Ash Wednesday with the blessing and imposition of ashes on the head of the faithful, penance and repentance. This day is marked by fasting, penance and usually penitential pilgrimages with the statue of the redeemer (Christ carrying the cross). The most common form of devotion during this time, besides the mass and the eucharist, is the way of the cross. This particular devotion, started by the Franciscans in the middle ages, along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which was the road that Christ followed form the atrium of Pilate to the Golgotha where he was crucified. |
The Friday before Palm Sunday is ussually dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. This is also a day of great devotion. Many people do fast out of devotion, and take part in the procession with the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Palm Sunday is the start of Holy Week. On this particular day, usually a small procession takes place in order to commemorate Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Traditionally all Easter exhibitions, where miniature statuettes and last supper reenactments are exhibited are kept open from this day till Easter Sunday.
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On Holy Thursday, in most of our churches, takes place the celebration of the mass commemorating the institution of the Holy Eucharist and the priesthood. At the end the blessed sacrament is taken to the altar of repose where it remains until friday afternoon. These are decorated altars, a couple of them designed by renouned maltese and european artists. Between Friday evening and Saturday noon, people visit seven churches to pray before these altars containing the Holy Eucharist.
On Good Friday, people go to the function which is the only function held on this day at around 3.00pm and afterwards, most parishes organize the Good Friday Procession. It is a colourful procession. Several persons called fratelli carry a number of statues representing the main stations of the cross. Others shed on biblical costumes in order to reenact the story of the passion of christ.
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On Holy Saturday in the evening, around 8.00p.m. there is a special celebration in our churches to commemorate Christ's resurrection. This celebrarion heralds the easter festivity in honour of the risen Christ.
The Easter Sunday procession on the other end is a very colourful one. The kids enjoy being donated a figolla. This figolla is a typical maltese delicatessen associated with this time in Easter. As part of the festivities a procession is held in the morning of Easter Sunday with the statue of the Risen Christ where traditionally, the bearers actually run with the statue along the roads. This is an old Maltese tradition with roots in the Cottonera area in Malta.
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In the weeks that follow the parish priests do the blessing of the families by visiting all the houses in their respective parishes.
Photos courtesy of Mr. Joseph V. Sammut
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