Shop owners and staff have been busy re-arranging stock, displaying their wares and sprucing up their outlets in preparation for what they hope will be a ‘grand’ opening tomorrow, when they are finally allowed to welcome customers back into their premises.
April 26 marks a new phase for the lifting of measures designed to curb the spread of COVID-19, with restrictions already eased at schools, care homes for the elderly and for religious activities.
It is now the turn of ‘non-essential’ services – clothes shops, hairdressers, florists and so on – to get up and running again.
Groups of four will also be allowed in public – up from two – and four households can gather in private residences, also doubling from two.
The Unholy War: a five-part series on Malta’s Interdett – Part 1
First of a MaltaToday series on the January 1961 Church Interdett, first published in MaltaToday in 2005
17 April 2021, 5:34pm
by Michaela Muscat
In January 1961, the diocesan commission issued a circular which was read out in all churches condemning the MLP’s affiliation with the Socialist International and the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organisation. In a bid to wield its power over the god-fearing masses, it declared a sin the reading of Labour newspapers and the attendance of MLP meetings.
The events of the sixties would re-carve Maltese society as Gonzi’s ‘holy soldiers’ battled Mintoff’s ‘evil’ ‘soldiers of steel’ (suldati ta’ l-azzar), the total number of people who had voted in favour of Labour’s proposal for integration of the Maltese islands with the United Kingdom.
Nine Giuseppe Calì paintings at the Għajnsielem parish church have been restored.
The restoration was commissioned by Archpriest Frankie Bajada and financed by Bank of Valletta.
Fr Charles Vella, who was entrusted with the restoration project, explained that infilling and reintegration were necessary to recover the paintings’ original aesthetic conditions.
“Dating back to the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, these paintings were damaged by tears and fungus infestations. Preventive conservation was also undertaken to minimise future decay and unnecessary treatments.
Research conducted before the restoration project reveals that Calì applied his techniques through handmade colours consisting of natural minerals.
A wax figure of Baby Jesus, wrapped in bands of cloth, graces the foot of the table altar of Ta’ Pinu Basilica until next Sunday when the Church commemorates the Baptism of Christ.
The figure was cast in wax by Fr Charles Vella and lies in a manger typical of the ones that used to be found in farmhouses around Gozo in the past.
It is ideally placed at the foot of the altar to remind the faithful that the child Jesus, born in Bethlehem, is the same Jesus present on the altar during the sacrifice of Mass and received by the faithful during Holy Communion. Just as the food in the manger provided sustenance to the farm animals, so does He now offers himself as the bread of life to believers.