The story behind an Infant Jesus wax image

Among the many items in the Maltese-Canadian Museum at the St Paul the Apostle church complex in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a waxen image of the Infant Jesus in a cloth dress. I had given it to the museum a few years ago, via Fr Manuel Parnis, MSSP, pastor of St Paul’s (2015-19). The simple waxen image is nondescript but the story behind it is both fascinating and centred around Christmas.

The façade of Jesus of Nazareth parish church, Sliema, in 2014. Photo: Frank Mifsud

Back in the latter part of 1935, Fr Dovik (Fr Ludovik Darmanin), a priest at Jesus of Nazareth (In-Nazzarenu) parish in Sliema, had asked one of his parishioners, George Gatt, if his eight-year-old son, Francis, would be willing to deliver the traditional Christmas midnight mass sermon – il-priedka tat-tifel (the boy’s sermon) or il-priedka tal-Milied (the Christmas sermon). George asked the boy and young Francis agreed.

Fr Dovik then loaned George a traditional, handwritten boy’s sermon. Francis’s sister, Nan, some 14 years older than him, transcribed it into a school exercise book and then helped her little brother to learn the sermon by heart.

What is interesting about the copy used by Francis’s sister to make her transcription is that it was already well-worn and many years, if not decades, old. Moreover, it was written in an Italianised form of Maltese that has long been discontinued. Thus, “c” or “ch” is used for “k”, so “kreatur” appears as “creatur” and “kien” as “chien”. Then, there is a difference in spelling to that used in Maltese today: “hekk” is written as “ek” and “qal” as “kal”, to cite but two examples. Nor does the original text use the diacritic marks we are now accustomed to in modern Maltese.

The front cover of the exercise book into which Nan Gatt copied the ‘Predica del Natale’ for her little brother Francis.

The first page of the ‘Predica del Natale’ as copied out by Nan Gatt.

Nan patiently coached her little brother until he had both committed the sermon to memory and had mastered the gestures needed in its delivery. As it turned out, on the night in question, Francis’s father was even more nervous than he was. George Gatt asked the priest if he might sit up in the choir loft so that people wouldn’t be looking at him should Francis make mistakes in the preaching of his sermon.

Could it be that the text of the sermon, written in an Italianised form of Maltese and possibly dating as far back as 1900, is the oldest surviving copy of such a boy’s midnight mass sermon in existence?

Francis Gatt holding the church’s Baby Jesus statue after the Christmas midnight mass at Jesus of Nazareth parish church, Sliema, in 1935.

Young Francis did such a fine job at the Christmas midnight mass that, two years later, Fr Dovik asked the young boy to give the same sermon at the Christmas midnight mass at St Leonard church in Kirkop where his colleague, Fr Joseph Inguanez, was pastor. Francis, now 10 years old, agreed. As a token of appreciation for the delivery of his memorised sermon, Fr Inguanez gave young Francis a wax image of the Infant Jesus. Later, Francis’s mother, the former Carmela Micallef, made a gown for it.

As for young Francis, he spent the night at the parish rectory and, later that morning on Christmas Day, made the rounds with Fr Inguanez to the homes of some of the parishioners. Of course, there was no way in which the priest or young Francis could escape accepting an alcoholic drink at each of the homes visited. Francis “Frank” Gatt recalled being tipsy by the time they had left the second home.

After Francis returned home from Kirkop, his father folded the exercise book in which the sermon had been written and put it away alongside other important family papers. It was by good fortune that this copy of the sermon was kept and survived World War II, considering the family had moved four times between 1935 and 1948.

Wedding photo of Yvonne and Francis Gatt, 1948.

By the spring of 1948, Francis the boy had grown into manhood. It was in this year that he and his older brother Tony made up their minds to emigrate to Canada. Tony was married and had a son. Francis had been engaged for about two years to Rita Yvonne Grixti, also a native of Sliema.

When Francis informed Yvonne and her parents of his decision to seek a better future in Canada, they were agreeable. It was also decided that Yvonne would have an easier time coming to Canada if she were Francis’ wife rather than his fiancée. Consequently, they were married on May 8, 1948, at Stella Maris parish church in Sliema.

Coincidentally, the pastor who officiated at the wedding was none other than Fr Inguanez, formerly of St Leonard church in Kirkop.

Some days after Frank and Yvonne’s marriage, Fr Inguanez had occasion to visit the home of Yvonne’s parents, John and Catherine (née Miller) Grixti. On the dresser in one of the bedrooms, he noticed a small wax statue of the Infant Jesus sitting on a papier mâché rock with his hands outspread.

The rock and statue were enclosed in a glass dome with a wooden base. Wondering how this gift had ended up in the Grixti home, the amazed priest remarked: “I gave it to a boy.” To which Catherine Grixti replied: “That boy is my daughter’s husband!”

Frank and Tony Gatt during lifeboat drill on board the Vulcania, on July 17, 1948.

When Francis went to Canada in June 1948, he brought the exercise book with the sermon his sister Nan had written out for him in 1935. It was probably Yvonne who brought the wax image of the Infant Jesus when she joined her husband in September 1948.

Both the exercise book and wax image managed to survive several subsequent moves in London, Ontario. In 2013, I was privileged to photocopy the book and photograph the Infant Jesus. After copying out the sermon and having it fact-checked for accuracy, I was able to have individuals translate it into modern Maltese and then into English.

When the late Albert Vella, then the interviewer for Leħen Malti in Toronto, contacted a friend of his at Jesus of Nazareth parish church in Sliema on my behalf as to whether the original or other boys’ sermons were in the possession of the church archives, Albert received the following reply: “I was archivist here in Sliema for some time. I do not remember ever coming across old Christmas sermons. I have asked but nobody seems to know anything about them.”

Could it be that the text of the sermon, written in an Italianised form of Maltese and possibly dating as far back as 1900, is the oldest surviving copy of such a boy’s midnight mass sermon in existence?

As for the waxen image of the Infant Jesus, Frank Gatt generously gave it to me a short while before his death in February 2017. Believing this waxen image, with the story behind it, was too important to be hidden away in private hands, I donated it, shortly after Frank’s death, and through Fr Parnis, to the Maltese-Canadian Museum in Toronto.

Dan Brock is an 85-year-old Canadian of Polish, Irish and English ancestry. He is also the editor of The Maltese Presence in North America, a monthly newsletter read by thousands.