‘I hope you feel welcome in our islands,’ Archbishop tells foreign Catholics

Archbishop Charles Scicluna expressed his gratitude to Malta’s migrant communities for their contribution to the wellbeing of society in a Mass held for foreign Catholics living in Malta.

Archbishop Scicluna celebrates Mass for foreigners in Malta

In his homily at the English-language mass, which was held at the at the Metropolitan Cathedral of St Paul in Mdina, the Archbishop expressed his hope that they felt welcome in Malta, and recognised how grateful Malta was for their contribution: not least the many foreigners who worked in the caring professions. He also expressed his joy at seeing foreign Catholics worship in Maltese churches.

“So many parish priests tell me how wonderful it is to see you in our churches, praying, visiting our shrines and being there as a beautiful Christian presence that makes our Church beautiful and truly Catholic,” Mgr Scicluna said.

The Gospel reading of the day included the parable of the barren fig tree, in which its owner is advised by the gardener to tend to it for another year to give it another chance to bear fruit before cutting it down.

The parable is preceded by Jesus’ reference to two tragic events that had happened in that time. The first, as Archbishop Scicluna pointed out, was an act of oppression: Pilate’s execution of a group of Galileans who were doing sacrifices to God without permission. The other – the collapse of a tower in Siloam – appears to have been an accident with no link to malice or aggression, but which still left innocent victims in its wake.

In both cases, Jesus had emphasised that the victims’ fate was not in any way a punishment for their sins, and his account of the events served to emphasise the need to repent. And repentance, the Archbishop stressed, meant “realising that the Lord’s way of looking at us is different to the way we look at each other.”

“Sometimes, we look at each other in a very judgemental way,” he added. “Deciding between white and black; not accepting that human reality is complex, very, very complex.”

The parable, the Archbishop added, helped shed light on this complexity. The gardener – a representation of Jesus, the Archbishop pointed out – emphasised patience, and this showed that God patiently waited for people to seek forgiveness when they are ready. But at the same time, as the tragic events mentioned by Jesus made clear, one needed to be prepared.

“Being prepared, especially during this beautiful season of Lent, is to rediscover the beauty of the Lord’s patience and the beauty of the Lord’s mercy. Because if we go to Him with great humility and truth, He will forgive us and embrace us with His mercy,” Archbishop Scicluna said. “There is no limit to His patience, no limit to His mercy. This is the Good News that we need to share today.”

In a weekend marked by poor weather, and with the visit by Pope Francis now just two weeks away, the Archbishop invited the faithful to pray not just for a beautiful visit by the Pope, but also to pray that good weather will be greeting him.

“We can organise so many things but we cannot organise the weather,” he mused. “So we better pray.”