On our birthday, we normally receive birthday cards, as well as other birthday wishes through e-cards, Facebook messages, SMS and the like. This is something we all like and enjoy.

It is a priority as Christians to thank the Lord for another year that has gone by. It is paramount that we express our gratitude for the gift of life and so many other gifts and graces we have received during the span of 52 weeks.

Our birthday offers an invitation to each one of us to reflect on what we have been through – the ups and downs of life – as well as to plan for the foreseeable future.

The anniversary of the inauguration of the Malta Office of the Aid to the Church in Need, known in short as ACN (Malta), on May 13, 2014, is also an opportunity for reflection.

This year’s sixth anniversary has reminded me of the ‘six stone water jars’ which are mentioned in the episode when Jesus was invited to the celebration of a Jewish wedding at Cana in Galilee.

I have witnessed thousands of charitable deeds made by Maltese and Gozitans

The text, found in St John’s Gospel, tells us: “Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each with a capacity of one hundred or one hundred and twenty litres” (Jn 2:6).

I will not be engaging myself in a biblical study on the mentioned text. I simply wish to pause upon those six stone jars. I can imagine them, right now, before me. They are empty. They are really bulky, yet necessary later on during the celebration when a purification rite was carried out, according to the Jewish custom.

Jesus could make the miracle without using anything but he wanted to involve the servants whom he ordered to fill those six jars. We are talking of a volume of between 600 and 720 litres.

I sincerely admire those servants who unhesitangly carry out the unexpected and demanding task without asking any questions, although they probably would have known that the purification rite came much later.  I imagine that in order to fill the large jars they had to go several times to the village water fountain and bring the water in pitchers, unless there was a water reservoir at the house where the celebration was on. Well, it was no easy task! The Evangelist does not include these details.

We all know what happened and we, too, are surprised. We know that Jesus made this first extraordinary miracle when he changed water into wine and the disciples believed in him. This is how the Lord acts. He surprises us by his wonderful deeds. And He always gifts us abundantly.

Six stone water jars: six jars in which Jesus’s miracle took place represent six years of continuous efforts by the ACN Malta Office; six years of generosity by the kind-hearted people of Malta and Gozo whenever we have helped our persecuted sisters and brothers all over the world; six years of awareness and information about the harsh and moving realities experienced by the Church wherever it is downtrodden; six years of sheer astonishment when we see that Christ’s Church, today, is still the Church of the martyrs who shed their blood in a powerful act of prophetic witness.

Six years may seem to be a short time span, yet during these six years, I have witnessed thousands of charitable deeds made by Maltese and Gozitans in their tangible assistance to Christians suffering persecution and discrimination; prayer and intercession for the suffering Church; and spiritual activities to help us grow in our enthusiasm for Jesus. We are filled with zeal in order that we may spread this zeal in others.

This has been our experience, here in Malta, in the last six years.

Rev. Hector Scerri, Ecclesiastical Assistant, ACN (Malta)