Five-year-old Francesco Grech, of Cospicua, was recently overwhelmed with joy when, together with his father Joseph and family friend Bro Luċiano Baldacchino ofm.cap, crossed over to Gozo to collect a statue of Our Lady Ta’ Pinu.

The statue, by Gozitan sculptor Pawlu Aquilina, was taken to the sanctuary where it was blessed by the rector, Fr Gerard Buhagiar.

Francesco, whose hobby is to collect miniature statues of saints, always wished to add the statue of Ta’ Pinu to his collection.

His father, an ITU nursing aid at Mater Dei Hospital, wanted to give a surprise to his son and on reaching the age of 46 last Saturday, he organised the trip to Gozo to collect the statue.

After the blessing event, the statue was left at the sanctuary for some time to be admired by the public.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.