May 8 has always been an important date for Joe Zammit Ciantar. It’s his birthday and the feast of Our Lady of Pompeii, which he is devoted to. But the date is also tied to a family tragedy.

I was born on Friday, May 8, 1942, during the worst year of World War II. On October 10, 1942 my parents lost their first child, Lydia, a baby of about 18 months; she was hit by shrapnel from one of the two German bombs that were ‘dropped’ on and exploded in two fields at Sannat at around 10.15am.

The explosion of one of the bombs destroyed our family’s house – among others. My father and I both survived, miraculously.

Sometime later, my family moved house and settled in a modest domicile in Sannat Road, Victoria. And there I grew up and lived until I got married and started a family in Santa Luċija, Malta, in 1967.

Sannat Road

Sannat Road was a theatre of all sorts of events: neighbours gathered in a group, sitting clustered together in the shade of a high wall, either playing tombola or listening to Marjanna ‘Ta’ Psaila’ reading for them in Maltese the weekly published ‘manetti’ in a series of novels by Emilio Lombardi. Boys played with marbles or with cigarette pictorial packets’ faces, or climbed nearby large mulberry trees for the exquisite little white fruits and girls played with beads or with prams and dolls.

Young men on bicycles would stop to sell fresh horse mackerel (sawrell), limpets (mħar), sea-urchins (rizzi), and bogue (vopi) for a few pence. People passed by on foot – sometimes barefooted holding shoes in hand – coming from or returning to the village of Sannat, after doing errands in Victoria.

Men led their flocks of smelly sheep and goats, stopping only to sell us a penny’s worth of milk in our blue-rimmed, white enamel mugs.

Every evening, the lamp lighter came carrying a small wooden ladder on one of his shoulders, and a can with paraffin oil in the other, to light lamps in lanterns hung on walls or street corners, and put out the same flames the following morning.

Neighbours would pass by our house on their way to frequent Ta’ Pompej church, further up the road.

My sister was aged just 20

My family never ever celebrated my birthday on May 8. I only started to enjoy birthday celebrations when I was 20. But tragedy hit my family on Friday, May 8, 1964, when I turned 22.

My sister, who was also called Lydia, then aged 20, who had started her professional career as a teacher in state primary schools eight months before, suddenly died of a serious illness.

On that day, instead of accompanying her on a flight to London for special treatment, I had to gather certificates and prepare all that was needed to have her carried in a funerary journey from St Luke’s Hospital in Malta to Gozo, join my family for a Mass praesente cadavere in the cathedral in Victoria and the burial in the Ciantar family grave in Xewkija.

An altar boy

When I was still six or seven years of age, my parents had asked Dun Ġorġ Mercieca ‘Tal-Mewta’ – rector of the Ta’ Pompej church where my family used to go to hear Mass very early every morning – to teach me how to serve at Mass in Latin. Eventually, I became a regular altar boy and helped in every celebration that used to take place in this church, attached to the monastery of the Dominican sisters in Gozo.

Special yearly occasions in which I used to serve included the profession of new young nuns in January and July, Easter and Christmas festivities, and especially, the feast of Our Lady of Pompeii, a large painting of which – painted by Lazzaro Pisani – hangs on the main altar of the beautiful and well-kept church, celebrated every May 8.

Instead of accompanying her on a flight to London for treatment, I had to prepare to have her carried in a funerary journey…

Our Lady of the Rosary

The painting – a perfect copy of the original venerated in the sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii in Italy’s Campagna region – depicts the Virgin Mary sitting on a throne, holding young Jesus on her knees. She presents a rosary to St Catherine of Siena and her son gives a rosary to St Dominic. The images of Mary and Jesus were crowned in October 1966.

The church is referred to as Ta’ Pompej, and the Madonna in the painting is similarly called Madonna ta’ Pompej.

The Pompeii basilica in Italy

The man who dreamt of building a church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, Italy, is Blessed Bartolo Longo. He was a satanic priest who studied Law at the University of Naples. He converted with the help of Dominican Fr Alberto Radente, who led him to a devotion to the rosary.

As a lawyer, he met his future wife, Countess Marianna de Fusco, with whom he also spent a life helping the most needy, ill and poor in Naples. Longo had initially promoted a feast in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, held in October 1873; he said he heard Our Lady tell him: “If you propagate the rosary, you will be saved.”

Eventually, he decided to buy a painting so that people may have a picture to venerate. One day, in Via Toledo, he met his confessor who advised him to go to Sr Maria Concetta in the convent of Porta Medina and ask her to give him a particular painting. Although it was in a very poor state of conservation, he bought it and had it transported to Pompeii on a cart which was used to carry manure.

The painting was restored and, in the process, an original Santa Rosa was transformed into St Catherine of Siena.

The building of a sanctuary

The building of the church in Pompeii began on May 8, 1876 – that is why the feast is celebrated on this day – with the local faithful’s offers of ‘a penny a month’. Antonio Cua was responsible for the construction of the rustic part in the form of a Latin cross, while Giovanni Rispoli took care of the monumental façade which was inaugurated in 1901.

It was in a chapel dedicated to St Catherine of Siena where the painting of Our Lady was initially displayed.

The shrine is today a minor basilica.

The 88-metre-high bell tower was completed in 1925.

In the first half of the 20th century,  it was expanded to be able to house over 6,000 people. It was in danger of being damaged by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1944 and by Nazi troops who threatened to destroy it during the war.

Popes’ visits… and a monument

Pope John Paul II paid two pilgrimage visits to the sanctuary, while Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis paid a visit too.

Sometime in the 1990s, on the feast in May, I paid a visit to this sanctuary. I was impressed with the beauty of the church – both from outside, but especially its interior, and with the multitude of faithful present. I was, however, almost disgusted at the large open-air market stalls (bancarelle) selling all kinds of cheap, plastic or light-metal souvenirs in the large space in front of the church.

In November 1962, a monument to Bartolo Longo by sculptor Domenico Ponzi from Ravenna  was placed in the square.

Every year, over four million people – pilgrims and tourists – visit the shrine, in particular on May 8 and the first Sunday of October, to be present for the devotional supplication (supplica) to the Madonna of Pompeii, written by Blessed Bartolo Longo himself.

The supplica in Gozo

On May 8, the feast of Our Lady of Pompeii is celebrated at Ta’ Pompej, Victoria, with great pomp and a large mahogany pulpit is brought in the church. Solemn Masses are said, with the sisters’ choir singing with heavenly voices.

From the pulpit, a learned priest delivers a panegyric about the Virgin Mary and the benefits of the rosary, to a congregation of faithful.

Dressed in white Dominican style vestments, I used to accompany the priest from the sacristy to the pulpit, and then, along the often over an hour-long rendition, stay sitting down on the second step of the stairs leading up to the pulpit.

These are the sad, nostalgic or happy memoires that fill my mind and heart, on this ‘special’ day – my birthday.