Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu: A Marian icon for the world

Today, the Feast of Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu “takes over” the votive Thursday of St George. The Martyr’s relic is indeed exposed on the main altar and his image is agog with votive candles, but the pride of place in the heart of our faithful today is taken by the image of Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu displayed upon the altar of St Lazarus. The 6.00pm Mass will bring with it a mention of St George in the homily but the Mass itself will be in honour of Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu. St George won’t mind in the least!

The image of Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu is a copy of the one venerated in the great Gozitan shrine. It was painted by local artist and restorer Godwin Cutajar on a commission by archpriest Joseph Farrugia before he became an archpriest. Another image, in this case made in fine mosaic, was recently dedicated in the National Marian Shine of Washington DC on the initiative of ex-Ta' Pinu rector Mgr Beneditt Camilleri. On that occasion, a booklet was printed to commemorate the event. The booklet carried two articles, one by Mgr Nikol Cauchi, bishop emeritus of Gozo, and another by Mgr Joseph Farrugia, archpriest of St George’s. Bishop Cauchi’s article gives an account of the event of Ta’ Pinu. The archpriest’s article consists of a theological and pastoral reflection. Mgr Farrugia is a lecturer in theology at the University of Malta and the Diocesan Seminary of Gozo.

Today we upload the article written by Mgr Farrugia.

A Marian Icon for the World
There is a name amongst women that blesses the heart like no other. Uttered by God in saving mystery prior to the beginning of time, it echoes through the lips of sinners in petition and saints in prayer till the end of time. We can indeed feel favoured when, as Christians, we utter it in the knowledge that the Virgin Mother of God, who bears it with perfect grace, listens to us in no less perfect love, the love that only a mother chosen for us by God himself can bestow.

The holy icon of Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu is an illustration of the still holier name, the name of Mary, the name of a maternal love given and of a filial love returned. It is the most venerated icon of the Blessed Virgin in the islands that lie at the centre of the Mediterranean, the cultural cradle where the devotion to Mary grew and began to take on the hues of peoples and nations. It is an icon which is steadily becoming better known and more widespread. And the faithful throughout the Catholic world can only be enriched by it.

There is no doubt that Pope John Paul II was expressing this conviction when, on May 26, 1990, as he stood beside the shrine of Ta’ Pinu, he launched a triple invitation that was as rooted in Christian tradition as it is, and is bound to remain, relevant to Catholics always and everywhere. The icon of Our Lady of Ta’ Pinu, wherever it goes and wherever it is venerated, will continue to carry and transmit these three invitations.

1) The icon transmits, in the first place, the invitation to draw near to Mary ‘in prayer’, to learn about her and to acquire true and direct knowledge of her. The icon, in fact, represents in her bodily assumption to heaven a revealed knowledge of her which, although promulgated only as recently as 1950, has been cherished by the church of both East and West since the early years of Christianity. A bland knowledge of the Virgin Mary is not adequate or at all helpful. She wishes us to learn about her, to deepen our knowledge of her, and to grasp her mystery. In discovering her divine destiny we discern our own.

2) The icon of Ta’ Pinu also invites us to seek the Blessed Virgin Mary’s ‘loving presence’ and ‘motherly protection’ especially when we feel the need for sustenance in our trials and comfort in stress. The shrine of Ta’ Pinu, as well as Marian shrines everywhere, stands as manifest testimony to the trust that Christians have always in the motherly love of Mary as intercessor and as guide in the pilgrimage of faith that takes us to our divine destiny – the same that Mary already enjoys in fullness.

3) The third invitation that the venerable John Paul II seems to have deciphered in the icon of Our Lady Ta’ Pinu is that which solicits us to collaborate with the church’s mission on the example of Mary’s cooperation in the divine mission of the Son. In his 1990 homily in Gozo, the late Pope invites us to collaborate with the church from within the family and he made a special mention of Mary as ‘Patroness of the Christian family’. Similarly Pope Benedict XVI, in his message for his Fifth World Meeting of Families, urges the transmission of the Catholic Faith in the family and invokes the intercession of the Virgin Mary ‘for all the families of the world’.

The holy image of Ta’ Pinu is indeed an invitation to encounter the Blessed Virgin Mary in the authentic faith of the Catholic church. It is not only an expression of the love and devotion of generations of Christians that have called her ‘blessed’ but it is also an articulation of her love for us and her devotion to us, in love and devotion that God willed her to express in words.

At the shrine of Ta’ Pinu, Our Lady spoke words that belong to the Gozitan dialect of the Maltese language. But, being words of love they are words that can certainly be grasped and are offered in humble service to all who wish to be enriched by a name that is given to transform sinners into saints. They are the words of an icon, a Marian icon for the world

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