Even though when I was a child the feast of St Paul was not a public holiday, the Church school I attended always took us on an outing − after making sure that we attended mass and listened to the longest liturgical reading of the year, of course.

The reading about the storm, the shipwreck and Paul’s first hours in Malta has all the ingredients of a great myth, with events shrouded in the mists of time: a crew about to lose their lives because of the greed of merchants, a life-threating storm, angels and God intervening, and in the end… Malta saving the day, and probably the fate of Christianity itself.

On top of it all, you have a twist in the final act, with the Maltese ready to help, but also ready to judge this mysterious stranger who escaped death a second time, cooly shaking off danger like one of the macho Hollywood actors that were so popular at the time of my younger years.

Imagine what would have happened had St Paul not died a martyr, beheaded in Rome, but had instead drowned somewhere out in the middle of the Mediterranean.  He would have been forgotten as just another casualty of one of the Mediterranean’s infamous tempests, as would have his message.

Listening to the story, I remember imagining a crowd of people standing up, cheering and sounding their horns at the mention of Malta. There was pride every time Malta and its unusually kind inhabitants were mentioned in this story in the Acts of the Apostles that is read in all countries of the world. The priest made sure to preach, year after year, about the importance of hospitality and the unwavering faithfulness of God. The story and the ritual of the outing (first with the primary school and later, after 1987, with my teenage friends) made sense within a particular context which was overtly Catholic. It perpetuated a myth (in the sense of a traditional story, not to be understood in its derogatory sense), creating memories, and led to the development of stories and worldview, therefore contributing to the construction of puzzle pieces that form our personal and communal identity.

The context of the 1980s and 1990s has long gone. Nevertheless, and surprisingly for many, the Maltese still claim to be Catholic. Indeed, in the 2021 census, 96.4% of Maltese citizens claimed to adhere to the Catholic faith. While the full meaning of that assertion still needs to be understood, what seems to emerge is that in our psyche, the belief that Malta is a Catholic country still holds firm.

Yet to bear fruit, stories and myths need reinterpretation. For many, being Maltese means defending our shores and our culture from ‘il-barrani’. But the foreigner is not going anywhere.

Given that more than a quarter of the population has a foreign passport... we need to rethink how we tell stories to ourselves and to each other

We’ve invited them over to sustain our economy and to contribute to our society though not necessarily to integrate and become Maltese. The fact that we no longer have young families able to regenerate our society is another reason why we need ‘il-barrani’ to stay. But it is also another reason why we need to work against the many ghettos that are mushrooming and that are feeding a sense of uneasiness about the presence of so many foreigners among us.

For hundreds of years, the story and the figure of St Paul sustained Maltese communities, either because it supported the identity of an underdog community chosen by God, or of a people who felt protected by Providence because we were different from other nations, especially our rulers.

Children playing during the feast of St Paul’s Shipwreck in Valletta last Monday.

For centuries, we have protected ourselves by being different; through our language and customs and, at times, even through our religious practices. Throughout all this, the figure of St Paul has featured as a prominent character. The strategy worked well, but maybe it is time to reinterpret our founding stories.

Identity and communal living require common memories, just as memories require rituals and stories. For many, February 10 was probably just a very welcome long weekend, with no deep meaning attached to it − at least not on a conscious level. But to leave it at that would be a missed opportunity, even for the staunchest secular citizen.

Given that more than a quarter of the population has a foreign passport and express themselves in countless different languages, cultures and faiths, we need to rethink how we tell stories to ourselves and to each other. How would the story of Paul serve modern Malta, retold in a context of welcoming “the other”, facing one’s fears and learning and listening to what the other has to say?

The story of St Paul still has a lot to contribute to the population of these islands. This is possible because, over the millennia, its meaning has been made concrete through the lives, art, rituals and being of many Maltese. Their memory and their energy will die only if we decide to ignore our diverse culture and history.

It will continue to provide meaning only if schools, families, institutions and the wider culture continue to tell stories and perpetuate rituals (even if these are just outings) while helping the young to interpret the meanings available in our towns and villages, in our memories and in our art.

Adrian-Mario Gellel is a professor of pedagogy. He developed ‘symbol literacy’, a pedagogy that seeks to help children engage with wisdom present in stories, arts and rituals in order to weave meaning and be in a better position to face life challenges.