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Malta: a feast for the senses
Malta is a nation of churches. Throughout the year, the devout Roman Catholic population of St Paul's Bay tread their way to church to worship, come rain or shine
Their dedication isn't surprising when you consider that St Paul was shipwrecked on the Maltese coast and managed to convert the island's Roman governor to Christianity in 60AD.
On one Sunday each year, the congregation replaces traditional worship with a feast of cooked meats, nougat, beer and dancing. Some forms of worship are clearly tougher than others.
Every village on the island pays homage to their patron saint at some point during the year. For the communities around St Paul's Bay, the last Sunday of July is one of the most important days of the year, as they honour their patron Our Lady of Sorrows.
The feast is the highlight of the religious calendar and the culmination of months of hard work by the villagers, who will have prepared decorations, floats and food for the festival.
But as the feast approaches, the hard work is far from over. Bright flags and banners are hoisted over the streets and lights strung all over town, painting the sun-bleached stone with splashes of colour. The float for the main procession must be decided on and built - an important task, as it needs to support a life-size statue of the Lady to be carried by eight strong men. There is also the personal preparation, for amid all the colour and lights of the festival, what does one wear?
The days leading up to the feast hint at what's to come. Spontaneous parties spill out into the streets. Bands strike up with a brassy tune at the slightest provocation and anticipation buzzes in the air. The day of the feast begins with Mass, with worshippers crowding into their local churches at nine in the morning.
Soon, however, the sombre atmosphere evaporates like the morning mist as band members don costumes, revellers dress in festive gear and the pallet of the saint is hoisted.
The crowd gathers, the band hums its first notes and the joyful procession begins. The tradition of festa dates back more than 200 years, surviving Napoleonic occupation and World War Two. Festa is a time for letting your hair down and a time for community, as villagers come together to prepare for the celebration.
Festa also means an increase in visitors for the St Paul's Bay area, especially in the nearby resorts of Qawra and Bugibba.
The party atmosphere of festa has much in common with the year's other religious feasting time, carnival, which is celebrated across the island.
Derived from carne vale, or the 'putting away of meat', it marks the five days before Lent when Catholics are encouraged to enjoy the pleasures they will soon have to forego during fasting. Like festa, carnival is a time when true worship requires serious frivolity, and citizens are more than happy to comply.
The festa season features more than 90 separate celebrations honouring the saints of the country. The St Paul's Bay festa lands right at the hottest time of year, when the bright yellows and reds of the community's flags seem to mock the heat. As the procession makes its way along the streets they pay their worship in sweat.
Like everything to do with festa, though, the hardship is short-lived. Soon the local people will stop for a beer as they rest in between songs. Then they will resume the march, a soft spray of water fanning over the procession as they laugh and dance and sing in the sun.
Community obligations really can be cruel sometimes.
* This article first appeared in the September 2008 edition of Saga's Travellers' News.
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