With the Saints through Christmas (31): 25 January 2022, Saint Paul, Saint Paul’s Bay

Saint Paul’s Church, Saint Paul’s Bay, Malta … 25 January is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Malta last week, and in Valletta it seems as though every street – or every second street – inside the walls of the capital of Malta, is named after a saint.

Later this morning, I am taking part in a meeting of the Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland. But, before a busy day begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

I have been continuing my Prayer Diary on my blog each morning, reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflections on a saint remembered in the calendars of the Church during the Season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February);

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

This week, I am continuing to reflect on saints and their association with prominent churches or notable street names in Malta, which I visited last week. This morning (25 January 2022) is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and I am looking Saint Paul at Saint Paul’s Bay, on the north coast of Malta, which I visited last week.

The town of Saint Paul’s Bay (San Pawl il-Baħar) is about 16 km north-west of Valletta. This is the largest town in the Northern Region and the seat of the Northern Regional Committee, along with being the most populous town in Malta.

The name of the town refers to the shipwreck of Saint Paul as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles on Saint Paul’s Islands near St Paul's Bay, on his voyage from Caesarea to Rome. Saint Paul’s stay is said to have laid the foundations of Christianity on the island.

Saint Luke recounts in Acts 27 to 28 how Saint Paul’s ship was lost at sea for two weeks during winter storms. Eventually, the ship ran aground on the island of Malta and was dashed to pieces by the surf, but all of the occupants survived and made it to shore.

Saint Paul’s Island, an uninhabited, rocky islet at the entrance to Saint Paul’s Bay, is thought to be the site where the ship wrecked. Acts 27: 41 states the ship ran aground on a piece of land ‘with sea on both sides.’

Saint Paul’s Shipwreck Church stands on the water’s edge in the town of Saint Paul’s Bay. The church is also known as St. Paul’s Bonfire Church and commemorates the traditional site where the shipwreck survivors, including Saint Paul, swam ashore and a bonfire was built for them.

The church was first built in the 14th century, but was rebuilt after a bomb destroyed the original building during World War II. The parish is run by the Franciscan Conventuals.

Saint Paul’s Church above the Menqa or boat shelter at the harbour in Saint Paul’s Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Acts 9: 1-22 (NRSVA):

1 Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ 5 He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ 7 The men who were travelling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

10 Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ 11 The Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.’ 13 But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ 15 But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ 17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, 20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’ 21 All who heard him were amazed and said, ‘Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?’ 22 Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.

Matthew 19: 27-30 (NRSVA):

27 Then Peter said in reply, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ 28 Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

The colonnades in Saint Paul’s Church in Saint Paul’s Bay, Malta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (25 January 2022) invites us to pray:

We pray for those outside of the Church, that they may feel God’s love. May we also pray for those responsible for evangelism in the Church, ensuring it is done in a sensitive yet effective manner.

Yesterday: Saint Wistin

Tomorrow: Saint Paul’s Pro-Cathedral (Anglican), Valletta

Saint Paul’s Islands in Saint Paul’s Bay … said to be the site of Saint Paul’s shipwreck (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

An Irish-born politician who is buried on one of the bastions of Valletta

The grave and monument to Lord Hastings on the walls on Valletta … he was born in Moria, Co Down, and raised in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Close to the Osborne Hotel in Valletta, where I was staying last week, the Hastings Gardens are on top of Saint John’s Bastion and Saint Michael’s Bastion, on the west side of the City Gate in the capital of Malta. The gardens offer views of Floriana, Msida, Sliema, and Manoel Island, but their name indicates an interesting connection with an Irish-born general and governor.

Inside the gardens is a monument erected by the Hastings family in honour of Francis Edward Rawdon-Hasting ((1754-1826), 1st Marquis of Hastings, who was a Governor of Malta. Lord Hastings died in 1826 and is buried in the gardens.

Lord Hastings was an Irish-born politician and officer who was Governor-General of India in 1813-1823 and Governor of Malta in 1824-1826. He took the additional surname Hastings in 1790 under the terms of the will of his maternal uncle, Francis Hastings, 10th Earl of Huntingdon.

Hastings was born at Moira, Co Down, on 9 December 1754, the son of John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira and Lady Elizabeth Hastings, 13th Baroness Hastings, a daughter of the 9th Earl of Huntingdon. He was baptised in Saint Audoen’s Church, Dublin, on 2 January 1755, and grew up in Moira and in Dublin.

He was educated at Harrow and Oxford, and joined the British army in 7 August 1771. He had was in the British forces for many years during the American War of Independence and fought at the Battles of Lexington and Concord and at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Rawdon was sent to Philadelphia with dispatches and returned to New York for the winter, where he raised a regiment, called the Volunteers of Ireland, recruited from deserters and Irish Loyalists.

He resigned as adjutant general in 1779, but served with the Volunteers of Ireland during the raid on Staten Island in January 1780. His most noted achievement was the victory in 1781 at the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill. He gave up his command in 1781. On the return, he was captured at sea by François Joseph Paul de Grasse, but was exchanged.

Rawdon sat as MP for Randalstown, Co Antrim, in the Irish House of Commons from 1781 until 1783. King George III made him an English peer in 1783 with the title of Baron Rawdon.

When his mother succeeded to the Barony of Hastings in 1789, Rawdon added the surname of Hastings to his own. He inherited Donington Hall, Leicestershire, from his uncle, and rebuilt it in 1790-1793 in the Gothic style; the architect was William Wilkins the Elder.

The monument to Lord Hastings in the Hastings Gardens in Valletta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

He succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Moira in 1793, and after that sat first in the Irish House of Lords and then, from 1801, in the British House of Lords.

It was rumoured briefly in 1797 that Rawdon would replace William Pitt as Prime Minister. In the Irish Parliament, Rawdon associated on most questions with the Patriot party of Henry Grattan and Lord Charlemont. In an eve-of-the-Rebellion speech in the Lords on 19 February 1798 he appealed for parliamentary reform and Catholic Emancipation, and denounced the government's policy of coercion.

Hastings presented evidence of the atrocities and tortures visited upon Irish people by Crown forces as they sought to break-up and disarm the United Irishmen who were organising the 1798 Rising. At one point, he was described by Wolfe Tone as ‘The Irish Lafayette.’ He was also the patron of the poet Thomas Moore, who regularly visited Donington Hall.

Rawdon strenuously opposed the government in the wake of the United Irish risings in 1798, and voted against the Act of Union.

As Lord Moira, he entered government in 1806 as Master-General of the Ordnance. However, he resigned the next year.

Lord Moira was appointed Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William, effectively the Governor-General of India, in 1812 and remained in office until 1821. He was given the title of Marquess of Hastings in 1816, with the additional titles Earl of Rawdon and Viscount Loudoun.

Lord Hastings became increasingly estranged from the East India Company and resigned in 1821, although he did not leave India until early 1823. He was appointed Governor of Malta in 1824 but he died at sea off Naples two years later on 28 November 1826 on board the HMS Revenge, while trying to return home with his wife, Lady Flora.

Lady Hastings returned his body to Malta, and following his earlier directions, cut off his right hand and preserved it, to be buried with her when she died. His body was then buried in a large marble sarcophagus in Hastings Gardens in Valletta. His hand was eventually buried, clasped with hers, in the family vault at Loudoun Kirk.

It is also a Maltese legend that the Hastings Gardens in Valletta took only four hours to be built. Adriano DeVina is the only known architect of the gardens.

Sunset seen from the Hastings Gardens in Valletta last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)