The Conventual Friars will celebrate the feast of St Isidore, also known as Isidore the Farmer, at their Franciscan church in Victoria on Saturday, May 15. 

Rosary will be said at 6pm, followed by Mass celebrated by Fr Guardian Joe Xerri at 6.30p.m. Another Mass will be said by Mgr Rużar Borg at 8.30pm. After Mass, there will be community adoration of the Blessed Sacrament up to midnight, followed by Mass. The statue of St Isidore has been placed on the presbytery for public veneration. 

St Isidore hailed from Madrid and lived between 1070 and 1130. In 2018, the statue went through extensive restoration at PrevArti of Mosta. It was inaugurated on January 6, 2019. The statue belonged to the Gozo cathedral, but it is still unknown how it was acquired. Around 1795, after a request by Fr Guardian Michelangelo Axisa, the cathedral Chapter donated it to the Franciscans. It features among the items spared by the French during their occupation of Gozo in 1798. 

While scanning the statue, a document was found in a sealed hollowed section. It was glued there by the artist, Carlo Carnazza, an otherwise unknown sculptor from Catania. According to the document, the work was concluded on May 10, 1665, making it one of the oldest statues sculpted in wood in Gozo.