There are three islands which make up the Nation of Malta: Malta, Gozo and Comino.I have discovered that Gozo life is delightfully different than that of the island of Malta.
This island has more farmland and is a vacation destination for the Maltese. The pace seems much slower and the people much less sophisticated than in Valletta and Sliema. Except for the pockets of British ex-pats who live on Gozo, the population is not so "multicultural" or cosmopolitan. Someone told me recently it would be a great place to have a flat and just pray and write.
The churches there reflect the great generosity of the fisherfolk who built these gorgeous places of worship, all neo-Baroque and splendid. I have never seen, outside of the Co-Cathedral in Valletta and the Cathedral in Mdina such beautiful churches. In fact, the Gozitan churches are more beautiful than most on Malta.
The Maltese use the island of Gozo as a get-away-for-the-weekend sort of place, so one can find great restaurants with very reasonable prices. Gozo is different. The problem with Gozo, which is a completely different diocese than Malta, is that there is no Tridentine or even Latin NO on the entire island. I find this disturbing, that the Summorum Pontificum can so easily be disobeyed for years and years and years. I am told by some priests that the people do not want the Latin Mass. I do not believe this for one minute.
If there was a TLM, I would to and live on Gozo, somehow, pray and write. I do not know if there is an all-day Adoration Chapel, as in Sliema and Valletta, a great resource for semi-contemplatives. Odd that there are not more Adoration chapels here.
One of the huge problems with Adoration in some parishes is that it is spotty schedule-wise and the priests and people insist on saying the rosary, singing hymns and generally making noise instead of having quiet, as in the two chapels which I attend.
Yesterday, in Sliema, the Adoration chapel gave a delightful break for me, as I was just getting over a virus and was missing Jesus terribly. To sit in His Presence gives me great peace and washes away anxieties, putting problems into perspective.
Sadly, several weeks ago, the Millenium Chapel was severely vandalized by criminals who also broke a beautiful Spanish Bambino.
Very sad and in Malta...
On Gozo, I went to an exhibition of Bambinos, collected mostly from private houses, some over 200 years old.
Today, I thought that if Malta keeps any semblance of a Catholic culture, this will be temporary. I give it one generation before Malta acts and looks like Lost Vegas. Already, there are several casinos on this small island. Unless Catholicism again becomes the soul of these islands, the entire culture will change and is changing drastically.
