I have written before about the secret place that I found on the fortifications of Vittoriosa where I spent my Thursday afternoons truanting from school.This place, the actual construction lost in the bombing of the Second World War, overlooked Dockyard Creek to the west and the moat that cuts off Vittoriosa on its land front to the north. If I looked down and towards the east there was a ledge beneath me that contained a garden and some religious statues. Also unseen beneath me but visible if I went through the triple gateways that constitute the entrance to Vittoriosa and looked back were man made caves in the moat wall accessible down some steps. The garden and caves are still there but at that time a very old lady lived in them and tended the garden.
Let us go back to the year 1837, exactly a hundred years before I made use of this place, when Malta was suffering from an outbreak of Cholera. It raged from the 9th June until the 9th of October and whilst the island was still reeling from the effects of that pestilence another tragedy befell the city of Bormla which is also known as Cospicua. It awoke on the morning of the 19th.October to find that someone had stolen the Blessed Sacrament in its silver container from the Church of Sta.Theresa.
I should explain for the benefit of listeners who are unfamiliar with Catholic doctrine that the wafers of bread that are consecrated in the ceremony of the Mass do not just represent our Lord Jesus Christ but are taken to be the actual substance of His body and are therefore afforded great reverence. The ciborium, a lidded container for the wafers in which is held the Blessed Sacrament, is invariably made of precious metal.
It is now known that the thief was one Pawlu Galea nicknamed Baggollu,the Baggage,and that he secreted himself in the church before it was closed. During the night he broke open the Tabernacle and took the ciborium and its contents.
Making his escape from the church,he wished to enter Birgu that is also called Vittoriosa but in those days, early in the British occupation of Malta, the vital harbour port was closely guarded by military police and the great door,still in position today,was closed.The entrance to the city however was very complex and Galea was familiar with the smaller passages under the main gate and in a cavity about seven feet, or two metres, above the ground in one of these he hid the ciborium and its precious contents.
Then,as now, the street of Sta.Lucia in Valletta was famous for its silversmiths and dealers in gold and silver.The police of Malta,who have always had a high reputation, maintained a watch on this street including a plain clothes officer known only to the traders. Galea had broken the cross off the lid of the ciborium and offered it for sale to one of the dealers, one Grezzu Zammit, who tried to detain the suspicious character by pretending to have the item assayed or valued whilst the police were alerted. Galea however took alarm and escaped.
He was now identified however and was soon apprehended in the church of Sta.Scholastica which is in Vittoriosa. He had made the mistake of being in that particular church at a most inappropriate ceremony, namely the clothing or induction of a nun, for the church of Sta.Scholastica is attached to a nunnery (It once served as the first hospital of the Order).
Meanwhile the ciborium had been found.Two small boys from the town of Zabbar were, according to their statement,chasing lizards in the passageways under the Gate complex.One of them was named Francis Cacchia, eleven years old and he reached inside the niche and found the container, damaged but otherwise intact.
The relief of the people of Cospicua was tremendous and the bells were rung as a ceremonial procession carried the Blessed Sacrament back to the church of Sta.Theresa led by the Arch Deacon Dr.D Salvatore Lanzon.
The wretched Pawlu Galea was put to trial and found guilty of both theft and sacrilege.In accordance with the prevailing law he was sentenced to the galleys. This was 1837 however and the galleys of the Knights were no longer available and anyway Napoleon Bonaparte in his brief stay in Malta had freed the galley slaves. Galea was sent to prison in irons with the traditional ball and chain and shared a cell with a man named Tirghan who had murdered two children at Delimara Point.
One day, Galea's cellmate took a part of his bed and used it to beat Galea to death. When he was questioned as to the reason for his act he said that he had heard voices telling him to kill Galea and as a consequence was removed to a hospital for the criminally insane.
This story was told to me one Sunday morning by a retired Sergeant-Major of the Malta Police, Noris Spiteri, who nowadays looks after the place in which we sat and in turn I told him how I sheltered above on the old walls long ago. As we conversed there was a strange rattling sound as a passer-by dropped a coin in a slot on the wall and it made its way down to a box in the chapel where mass is still said once a year in recollection of the events of the last century.
The coins provide the candles that perpetually illuminate the image in the garden of "fejn sabu s-Sinjur" which, in English, means "The place where they found the Lord"
E-mail to Peter Prictoe: rinella@cableinet.co.uk
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