The Gozo Diocese, together with many parishes in Malta and the whole Catholic world, is today celebrating the feast of Holy Mary’s Assumption into Heaven.
Every year, the feast is celebrated with great pomp. The Gozo cathedral is exquisitely adorned, while the streets of Victoria are decorated with large colourfully painted banners and planted with artistic biblical figures and saints on pedestals, and light festoons with thousands of small coloured bulbs. Victoria looks at its best when en fête.
An agricultural show annually takes place on the day. First held in 1855, the show sees Gozitan farmers and cattle and fowl breeders put their best products on display, competing for prizes while, at the same time, attracting thousands who throng the Villa Rundle gardens, where the event is held.
Donkey, mule and horse races are also traditionally held in the afternoon; the ‘competing’ animals run all along Republic Street to the admiration of enthusiasts who gather behind rope barriers on both sides of Victoria’s main thoroughfare.
This year, Victoria’s streets are bare
However, this year, Victoria’s streets are bare… no banners, no statues on pedestals and no light festoons have been put up. The surge of COVID-19 in these last few weeks has ruined many celebrations, parties and the much-awaited Maltese festas.
The races have been cancelled too. And the farmers and fowl breeders awaiting to take pride in their products were disappointed when the agricultural show was cancelled as well.
Yet, Gozo is currently full of Maltese, who have opted to holiday locally rather than go abroad. Today, many of them will go up to the Citadel to enjoy panoramic views of Gozo, while parishioners will fill the cathedral to follow the Church celebrations in honour of the Assumption into Heaven of Holy Mary.
The cathedral hosts various treasures of art and the most attractive is the statue of Mary with outstretched arms, made in Rome in 1897, and donated to the cathedral by the Leone Philharmonic Society, some 64 years ago.
It also has one of the world’s most impressive painted domes – a trompe l’oeil – painted by Antonino Manuele from Messina in 1837, which has been restored last year.
Joe Zammit Ciantar is the author of The False Domes of the Gozo Cathedral and Other Churches, available from the Cathedral Bookshop, at the Citadel, Victoria.