Every Friday evening during Lent, Fr. Marcello Ghirlando OFM is conducting a catechesis on the mysteries of Christ’s passion in the Rosary.   These talks are aimed at preparing the faithful who frequent the Franciscan church of Valletta, popularly known as “Ta’ Ġieżu (from the titular Santa Maria di Gesù), for the celebrations of Easter.

Mass is celebrated at 8 pm, followed by a moment of adoration in front of the Crucifix.   During this adoration the catechesis takes place.   The session is then concluded by prayers until 9.30 pm.   Many persons are taking part in these catecheses and every Friday evening the church is full.

The Crucifix of “Ta’ Ġieżu” church is venerated by all Maltese.   It is a wooden crucifix sculptured in an olive-tree trunk by a Franciscan lay brother from Sicily, Blessed Fra Umile da Petralia Soprana, in the 17th century.   It was brought over to Malta by the Franciscan friars in 1636 and placed on the altar where it is still venerated.   Fra Umile sculptured many crucifixes like the one in Valletta, and they are still venerated particularly in Sicily and Calabria.   His brother, Innocenzo, also a Franciscan brother, sculptured crucifixes as well.   In Malta there is a crucifix by Fra Innocenzo da Petralia Soprana in the Mdina Cathedral, and another crucifix by the same Franciscan is venerated in the church of San Damiano in Assisi.   The crucifix of Valletta is a typically baroque image of Christ, very dramatic in his passion and death on the cross.   It has often been the centre of attraction during national pilgrimages, particularly on solemn occasions, like the jubilee year 2000.

The Franciscan church of “Ta’ Ġieżu” in Valletta is also the focus of the earliest Good Friday procession, dating from 1646, organized by the Archconfraternity of the Holy Cross, in whose chapel the miraculous crucifix is venerated.   The devotion of the Fridays of Lent towards the mysteries of the Passion in the Rosary is also very old, and until about thirty years ago the statues of the Passion mysteries were taken in procession, one by one, every Friday, culminating in a procession with all the statues on Good Friday.   In Valletta the number of statues still largely respects the original set of the Passion mysteries, namely, Christ in Gethsemani, Christ scourged, Christ crowned with thorns, Christ carrying the cross, Christ on the cross on Calvary, Christ buried, and the Virgin Mary of Sorrows.