St Mary of Jesus Friary, Rabat

The friary of Santa Marija ta’ Ġesù (Ta’ Ġieżu) in Rabat is the oldest one of the Province. On 6 April 1492 a Jurat of the Universitas of Mdina by the name Giacomo Ħakim, left in his last will a legacy in favour of his brother, Fra Mariano Ħakim, an Observant Franciscan of the friary of Santa Maria di Gesù in Messina, Sicily, in order to found a friary of the Friars Minor of the Regular Observance in Rabat dedicated to Santa Maria di Gesù, like many other Franciscan Observant churches in Sicily. The papal decree approving the foundation was issued on 29 January 1494, entitled Apostolicae servitutis. Since Giacomo died and Fra Mariano did not proceed to execute his will, the Jurati of Mdina took matters into their own hands on 21 January 1497 requesting the appointment of a Procurator to take care of building the new church and friary. The new church was built in 1500 together with a small friary, of which the Gothic cloister is still visible. It was built in the area of the church of Santa Margerita, close to the cemetery of Saint Paul extra moenia (outside the walls) of Notabile. The first Guardian was Fra Cherubino da Noto. The Gothic church was endowed with a white marble statue of the Madonna and Child, the work of Antonello Gagini (1504). The statue is still venerated in the church, but its artistic pedestal is now at the MUŻA National Museum of Art in Valletta. Another precious work of art, of which only two panels remain in the church, is the polyptych by Antonello Resaliba da Messina (1517). The two panels depict the Madonna and Child and the Depostion from the Cross. Other sections are in private collections. Grand Master Philippe Villiers de l’Isle Adam was a benefactor of the friary and paid for the cloister. He died in the same friary on 21 August 1534. Another Guardian in Rabat before 1552 was Blessed Antonio Scalmato di Caltagirone who found the natural spring supplying the friary with water. A statue of this Franciscan stands above the cloister well. The 11 January 1639 earthquake in Noto, Sicily (magnitude 7.4), which was the strongest earthquake in recorded history in Malta, damaged the church and friary, as well as Mdina Cathedral, which was rebuilt in 1702 by architect Lorenzo Gafà. The friars of Rabat had to wait until 1752 to rebuild the church, which was ready in 1757. It is the church we see today. It was blessed on 11 May 1757 and consecrated by Bishop Vincenzo Labini on 23 November 1790. The church contains a painting of the Trinity by Fra’ Antoine Favray (1759) and a titular painting of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary by the Maltese painter Giuseppe Hyzler (1855). On the left hand side of the main altar is the chapel of St. Joseph, which is a juspatronatus of the Archconfraternity of St. Joseph and is documented before 1533. From this chapel one enters the Oratory of St. Joseph, the headquarters of the same Archconfraternity. On 16 June 1508 the Universitas and the Cathedral Chapter of Mdina declared the feast of St. Joseph on 19 March as a holiday of obligation. It was the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV who introduced the feast of St Joseph in the Roman calendar in 1481. The first Statutes of the Confraternity (1662) mention an Oratory built in 1665 in the garden of the friary. This Oratory was rebuilt in its present form in 1804. The same Oratory enshrines an ancient statue of St. Joseph, traditionally considered to have been brought over from Rhodes by the Knights of St. John. The statue was crowned on 1 May 1963, thanks to the efforts of the Minister Provincial Fr. Alfons Marija Camilleri, who obtained a papal Breve addressed to him by Pope Pius XII on 27 July 1956.

Historical information: Ġorġ Aquilina OFM, Il-Franġiskani Maltin (Ta’ Ġieżu), Malta 2011.