Last Monday, as the crowd gathered around Castille, the feeling was palpable. When faced with cruel tragedy, collective dread and burning moral injury, the people responded with a sense of calm, quiet dignity and humble purpose. Women, men and children of all ages took out candles from their purses and bags to light them up as a sign of hope. Where darkness rules, a flicker of light will conquer it still.

But where did that light come from? It ignited in one woman: unassuming but determined, and not resolute to do much but to simply stand tall… right there, motionlessness, remembering her dead son, lamenting how he was unfairly taken away by our collective sin, still unyielding even when mocked.

Her spark of fire was the reminder that the innocent sacrificed at the altar of depravity could not rest in peace until justice is restored. Her fire could touch thousands, taking them to the streets, not just because we were in awe at the mother who stood resolute in her utmost vulnerability… but because her gravitas evoked a sense of righteousness that our collective greed, apathy and shamelessness had subdued. She rekindled our dignity; she reminded us of our deep-seated desire for a more just world. She bore witness that not even all the horrors of hell could extinguish the only true source of life: Love that is most glorious in being outpoured.

Isabelle Bonnici became our living Mater Dolorosa, evoking the holiness and purity of love in the darkest pits of filth that our collective sinfulness creates. We are all guilty of her son’s death – some, of course, carrying a much heavier burden in their consciences. But if we had been living with our share of the burden of guilt by numbing our souls and deadening them to empathy, her love broke through the stone of our hearts, turning them to flesh. We felt her just plea, her tears rekindled our souls, she witnessed grace that now beckoned a nation to conversion, sparking the hope of healing and renewal.

Bonnici did not just unite a nation but became a living icon for ever-present love, that invites to true life. She reminded us of the feminine aspect of the divine that has no need for a hero journey to prove its worth, but is evoked in persistence, resilience, patience, self-emptying.

It reminded me of a recent workshop I had the honour to participate in as Tyrone Grima and Angele Galea explored the representation of womanhood in Malta that remains a patriarchal society. The influence of a collective anima split as a demonised Eve and acquiescent Mary was challenged by giving voice to women today who longed for truly godly feminine icons.

While Grima, in his exploratory script, challenged our patriarchal assumptions about the relations between men and women, sacred and profane, Galea revealed contemporary feminine faces of holiness in four poignant portraits of Justice, Maidenhood, Wisdom… and yes, an icon of Sorrow, that reminded us of the now-living icon, Bonnici. 

Justice. Photos: Rachel Fleri Soler

Maidenhood

Sorrow

Wisdom

The light of hope spread in the pits of darkness as the Addolorata reminded that love conquers all. Will other powerful living faces of feminine holiness – of life-giving power, of zeal for love-fuelled justice, and of the wisdom of equanimity that persists beyond all hardship – rise to lead this island to break the chains of our slavery?

nadia.delicata@maltadiocese.org