“Father, is God still dwelling in Malta and Gozo,” an elderly lady asked me the other day. We must promise ourselves to change our direction, our values and our attitudes before it is too late, I replied.

In his letter to the Ephesians (5:14-15), St Paul wrote: “Anything illuminated turns into light. Wake up from your sleep, rise from death and Christ will shine on you.”

George Orwell wrote that “A society becomes totalitarian when its structures become flagrantly artificial: that is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud”.

Man needs to urgently search for God through the eyes of his heart.

In these islands, we are conditioned by what other people say or think about each other. Are we still permitting God to dwell in our islands? In our communities and our families, do we wonder what St Paul would tell us if he were to visit us today?

One of our problems is that we are becoming a hard-headed nation. Pythagoras used to say that it is better to be silent than to dispute with the ignorant. Especially those with responsibility in this island must stop, think and reflect because one who asks questions is a fool for a minute but the one who does not is a fool for life.

Cicero used to say: “Anyone can make mistakes but it is the idiot who persists in his errors.”

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk once surprised his learned guests by asking them bluntly: “Where does God reside?” They reacted sarcastically, noting the world was almost full of His glory. “God,” he hit back, “resides only where He is left to abide but God seeks man and is continually in search of him.”

The bible tells the story of the love between God and humanity. In our life, we need to begin a new story everyday: It is about faith, trust and adaptation: promising and deciding to follow God.

Try to look at the world with the heart of a child and life becomes more beautiful.

Sometimes, solitude is for us a fount of healing, making our life more worth living. Very often, words are a torment for the person who needs many days of silence to recover from the futility of words. As Goethe used to say: “A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”

I agree with Pope St John Paul II when he said: “Beauty creates emotions. But only beauty will save our world.”

What is happening in Malta? We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

Where are you God? Did we close our heart to you?

The great Dante wrote: “Mankind is at its best when it is more free.” This will be clear if we grasp the principles of liberty. We must enjoy freedom of choice, which many speak about but few insist on it. What type of freedom do we have in Malta and Gozo?

Cicero used to say: ‘Anyone can make mistakes but it is the idiot who persists in his errors’- Fr Charles Cini

Niccolò Machiavelli used to say: “First method of estimating the intelligence of a ruler in a country is to look at the men he has around him.”

Though living under the brutal colonial domination of his country, Mahatma Gandhi admitted he was struck by the words of Christ. He spoke about concepts of truth and the essence of the spirit.

To fear the truth is to live a horrible tragedy and, indeed, many remain silent.

We are protagonists in a world dominated by opposing principles and behaviour: falsehood, avidity, injustice and hate prevail.

One cannot escape death because all those who are born will perish. So, we need to look at what is happening around us. We need to fear God, not man, and to fall in love with Him.

We must admit we increasingly disregard religion in both Malta and Gozo and that as many families become affluent others struggle to make ends meet, humiliated in their daily poverty.

The innocent citizens of this country suffer because of the mistakes made by the government. However, all of us must ask whether we are also responsible for this mess. We have become slaves of the stubbornness of a few ruling this country.

See what the great Beethoven had to say: “Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy.”

If we continue living in this way, we will kill the roots of society; we become arid, authors of deceit and create idols. We would not be able to have a heart that loves and a mind that dreams. Our heart is becoming cold. We have turned ourselves into machines that grind richness, pleasure and success.

Do we know who finally wins? It is the person who, every morning, in his humility, is ready to face life, trusting in God. It is the one who is always ready to give, who can smile, still believes in dreams, is ready to sincerely embrace those around him and willing to rediscover in God the deep meaning of life.

Celebrations end, the band becomes silent, the euphoria and the shouts die down but the truth remains. We must never give up truth or our faith for they are the foundations on which Christians build their existence, a gift from God.

It is in our short period of life that we have to find an answer to our existence and be ready to say: “I love from the depth of my heart.”

As I look at Maltese society today, I realise there is a big crisis in our heart, exacerbated by deep suffering.

We do not choose beauty, peace and courage any more in our daily life. We have become slaves of the media and, especially, of false prophets who are misleading man to ruin.

Man has lost his peace of heart in search of substitutes and is leading an unhappy and depressed life.

We have to remember that man does not live on money and power alone.

Fr Charles Cini is a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco.