“Courage,” Winston Churchill famously said, “is what it takes to stand up and speak but courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

If we correct our mind, the rest of our life will fall into place. When God is lacking in our life, everything collapses; we become poor and weak.

Shakespeare wrote: “The earth has music for those who listen.” In life, beauty always leads to mystery and guides to morality, to accept mystery. A wise man is never afraid to face the truth.

Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts. Compare our life to that of the people in Ukraine and the Middle East. As my dear mother used to tell me: “Everyone has the right to cry and shout.”

If in our islands, today, there were many people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise within a few years. In Malta and Gozo, there are people who sleep outdoors, on benches during the night and many of them are also hungry.

We are called staunch Catholics but what is our conscience telling us?

Our islands need people who can plant kindness and love. We must bear in mind what Don Bosco used to teach his children: “The best and wise advice is to be good and wise whenever we can but never wait for a reward from the world, but only from God.”

“A single tear shed at the remembrance of the Passion of Christ [helping the poor] is worth more than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or a year of fasting on bread and water.” Some attribute that quote to St Augustine.

St Catherine of Bologna used to tell those around her: “The more afflicted we are, the more we ought to rely on aid from above.”

Poet Rabindranath Tagore tells us: “The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has, at last, started to understand the meaning of life.”

As Christians, and also as human beings, it is our duty to approach the poor, to talk to them and, more importantly, to have the courage to listen to their suffering as a result of their daily hard experiences.

I was proud and happy to hear President Myriam Spiteri Debono, a fellow Gozitan, say: “Our first move should be to integrate those less fortunate foreigners, who came to our islands to find a better life: we need to welcome them and understand them.”

Some of these brothers and sisters came to Malta with no possessions but with a lot of fear and amazement, in search of all needs. They came to us, especially as Christians, to share bread with us because life should be divided and consumed together.

The parish priest of Lampedusa, the famous island that is part of the autonomous region of Sicily, adorns his church with pieces of the wooden boats of the many people who end up there. What a huge rebuke and reproach to us Maltese and Gozitans who are more concerned with embellishing our festas and churches.

The greatest evils in this world are not carried out by guns and tanks but by men in suits sitting behind desks- Fr Charles Cini

We should never stop doing even little things for others, especially the poor. Sometimes, those little things occupy the biggest part of their hearts. When we help the poor, please, let’s leave our camera at home.

Are we aware of a certain type of poverty prevailing in this country, not only among the Maltese but also many foreigners trying to find refuge here? Do we realise that imbalance is causing problems and even poverty here?

The problem in Malta is that citizens have different opinions to defend their own back. Faced with this stark reality, we need to do some soul-searching and ask ourselves who were the Maltese in the past, who are they today and who do they want to be in the future.

When doing that, let us consider what Don Bosco had declared: “Man, today, is never satisfied with what he has. He always wants more in the search to satisfy himself. We all have to die. Why are we afraid to die? We need to remove the fear to die.”

We cannot be oblivious to the fact that the greatest evils in this world are not carried out by guns and tanks but by men in suits sitting behind desks.

In his narrative poem La Divina Commedia, consisting of three parts – hell, purgatory and heaven – the great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri puts the powerful rulers and tyrants in hell.

When I stop and think, I recall what an elderly man once told me: “Sometimes, people feel that politicians pass over the body and dignity of their citizens. They don’t care. They are blind and very determined in their dirty plans and projects, especially when money is involved.”

I finish with Mahatma Gandhi’s Seven Blunders of The World: wealth without work; pleasure without conscience; knowledge without character; commerce without morality; science without humanity; worship without sacrifice; politics without principle.

Fr Charles Cini is a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco.