Religious faith in Malta remains high, but taking part in the associated traditional rituals appears to be in consistent decline.
Most commonly remarked on are declining Sunday Mass attendances, but as Lent starts on Wednesday, the once ubiquitous practice of fasting also seems at risk – or at the least, takes on new meaning.
Internationally, for example, some environmental groups are calling on people to follow the Lenten tradition of abstaining from meat not as a form of piety but as an opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint. A family going without meat for the whole of Lent, according to one study, would be equivalent to taking their car off the road for nearly three months.
Nothing quite so innovative is widespread in Malta, but views on Lent are still shifting. Archbishop Charles Scicluna told The Sunday Times of Malta that countless expressions of religious piety – passion plays, pilgrimages, processions and band marches – still play an important religious and cultural role during Lent in Malta.
Fasting, on the other hand, has become less cultural and more linked to people’s personal journey of faith – not done “for show” but as a means of spiritual preparation, together with charity and prayer, for the celebration of Easter.
Mgr Scicluna, however, admitted that for some, escaping the rituals and traditions of Lent was more appealing than embracing them.
“I know some Maltese flee that very atmosphere which I cherish, while others enjoy organising the odd ‘transgressive’ party on the night of Maundy Thursday or Good Friday,” he said.
A family going without meat for the whole of Lent would be equivalent to taking their car off the road for nearly three months
“But that, I suppose, is the way with the modern world. People do things not because they have to but because they want to. There is no constraint in love. I prefer it that way.”
Nadia Delicata, a lecturer in modern theology at the University of Malta, said the principles behind Lenten rituals – reflection and penance, including through physical gestures – are a part of all religions and philosophies, and effectively boil down to setting time aside to becoming a better person.
“If many of us today find rituals of reflection and spiritual purification meaningless, it is because we have lost a sense of what Christians call sin,” Dr Delicata said, adding that this loss made the perpetration of injustice in personal and social relations all the more possible.
“So indeed, maybe we no longer put on sack cloths as a sign of repentance but I don’t think we can throw away the baby with the bath water. Rituals evolve with the culture. But their meaning and significance seldom go away.”
Pyt Farrugia, a 29-year-old social activist, will be using Lent this year to explore one way those rituals can be applied anew – through a theological exercise developed by Peter Rollins called “atheism for Lent”.
“It offers a space to reckon with a growing public interest in atheist arguments, and discover whether there is indeed a contradiction between atheism and spirituality,” he explains.
“And he plans to explore, in a creative and respectful way, the perceptive criticisms and critiques of God, religion, and faith that we encounter in contemporary culture.”