This week I shall be talking about the first public holiday of the year (well technically the second one after New Year’s Day) – the 10^th of February which commemorates the shipwreck of St. Paul in Malta which took place in 60 A.D. This event is also registered in the Acts of the Apostles: 27, 28.

This is a very special day for Maltese people especially since St. Paul is also the patron saint of the island.  It is claimed that during his three-month stop in Malta The Apostle to the Gentiles stayed in a cave in Rabat, which nowadays forms part of the Parish Church of this picturesque town, and which is visited by hundreds of tourists every day.  When the late Pope John Paul II visited the island (on two separate occasions in 1990 and 2001) he too had paid a visit to the sacred grotto.

2010 marks the 1950^th anniversary of St. Paul’s shipwreck in Malta so if you happen to be on the island this Wednesday make sure that you pay a visit to Valletta (the capital city where the actual feast of the Shipwreck of St. Paul is celebrated), Rabat (where you can find St. Paul’s grotto, and also where the feast of the martyrdom of St. Paul is held) as well as Safi (which is the third town in Malta that celebrates the feast of St. Paul’s conversion).