Franciscan Friars celebrate gift of religious life

Franciscan Friars Celebrate Gift of Religious Life: 800 Years of Barefoot Witness on the Rock

Valletta – The bells of St Francis Church in Republic Street pealed a little longer this morning as the Maltese Province of the Order of Friars Minor marked the Feast of St Francis with a dawn-to-dusk celebration that blended barefoot processions, live għana music, and a pop-up soup-kitchen feeding more than 400 people in Strait Street. For the grey-robed friars who have been part of Malta’s skyline since 1492, this year’s festivities carried extra weight: the 800th anniversary of St Francis’ “Letter to the Rulers of the Peoples”, a text that still shapes how the order thinks about poverty, peace, and the Mediterranean.

Fr Mark Cachia OFM, Vicar Provincial, told Hot Malta, “We don’t do nostalgia. We do gratitude. Every sandal-wearing step from Floriana to Valletta this morning was a reminder that the Franciscan charism is not a museum piece; it is a living, breathing call to fraternity.” The barefoot procession, a first for Malta, drew curious tourists and early commuters who paused to film on their phones as the friars wound past the Triton Fountain and down Old Bakery Street, reciting the Canticle of the Creators in Maltese, English, and Italian.

Local colour was everywhere. Children from the St Francis School in B’Kara scattered lentisk leaves in the friars’ path, a nod to the small evergreen that carpets the island’s garigue and whose berries once flavoured the Knights’ liqueurs. Inside St Francis Church, the choir of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra premiered a new setting of Psalm 148 by composer Ruben Zahra, weaving in the traditional Maltese “żaqq” bagpipe. Between verses, the congregation could smell fresh ftira baking in the adjacent cloister—baked by the friars themselves using flour from the Ta’ Qali farmers’ cooperative. By 10 a.m. the queue for the ftira and coffee snaked around the corner, testament to the order’s talent for turning liturgy into lunch.

Cultural historian Dr Maria Vella explained why the celebration matters beyond the cloister walls. “The Franciscans were among the first to preach in Maltese rather than Latin, and they set up the earliest public pharmacies open to slaves and Muslims at a time when the Order of St John was still defining its walls.” She pointed to the 17th-century pharmacy jars still displayed in the adjoining museum—ceramic vessels painted with blue lotus flowers that once held cumin and anise for indigestion. “Today’s barefoot walk is continuity, not pageantry,” Vella added. “It reminds a hyper-connected island that vulnerability can still be a public virtue.”

The community impact was tangible. Each friar carried a cardboard sign with a QR code linking to the “Frate Francesco Fund”, a micro-donations platform launched last month to finance mental-health outreach in Gozo. By noon the fund had already exceeded its €5,000 target. Meanwhile, in Pope John XXIII Hall, 60 residents from Ħal Far open centre joined residents of Valletta for a shared lunch of minestra and rabbit stew cooked by the friars’ kitchen volunteers. Syrian refugee Ahmad Al-Hariri, 34, said he first met the friars when they brought blankets to the centre last winter. “Today I helped serve the soup. Tomorrow I start my first shift in their garden project in Marsa. It’s the first time since leaving Damascus that I feel I’m giving, not only receiving.”

The day ended with Compline on the church roof, the skyline of cranes and limestone glowing amber under a setting sun. As the friars sang the Salve Regina, a lone fireworks petard exploded from a distant village festa—a reminder that in Malta, the sacred and the celebratory are never far apart. Fr Mark smiled: “Francis once told his brothers, ‘Preach the Gospel; use words if necessary.’ Tonight our words were silence, our sermon a shared skyline.”

Come next week the sandals will be back in the sacristy, but the barefoot footprints—literal and metaphorical—will linger on the island’s limestone. In a country where GDP headlines often drown out quieter stories, the friars insist that the gift of religious life is not a retreat from society but a deeper immersion in its joys and wounds. Eight centuries on, Malta is still listening.