69/2019
A Pastoral Letter
by His Excellency Mgr Mario Grech
Bishop of Gozo
on the occasion of the Feast of the Assumption
and the Conclusion of the Marian Year
MARY THE ROAD TO JOY
I was still at the Seminary when the Servant of God Dun Mikiel Attard recounted to us how once, returning to Malta by boat after a stay in Italy with the poor, he accosted a young man, a foreigner, and asked him what is joy. The young man opened a bottle of beer, sipped it and showing him the bottle, replied, “This is joy!”. It so happened that a storm began to blow and the boat began to rise up and down with the waves to such an extent that many felt seasick. This young man was one of them and he was so sick that he ended up feeding the fish! When the boat docked in our Grand Harbour Dun Mikiel gently asked him what had become of his joy. The young man apologised and told him he had been joking when he replied to him before the way he did.
Going by research conducted in these last few years, our country is one of the foremost places where one can live happily: possibly we are the happiest people worlwide! This is an impressive result, but how true is it? And what standard does one use to measure joy? I feel that today there are many who are asking the same question posed by Dun Mikiel, the more so when it seems that true joy is becoming more of a rarity. We find ourselves surrounded by so many sad situations which weigh down heavily on the mind and heart. It is enough to think of the storm clouds gathering over certain married couples who are seeing their dream of a happily married life vanish into thin air; or to see the proliferation of new social problems leading to a diminishment of mental health among us and in so many other countries. Continue reading >>