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Feast of St.Cajetan in Hamrun.

This is one of the best celebrated feasts on the islands. The actual festivities are held on the Sunday following the 6th August, the 7th being the actual date of St.Cajetan's death. For this occasion there are festivities both inside the parish church and outside in the streets. The inside celebrations start a week before with the transition of St.Cajetan’s relics and his statue being moved from its niche to its stand on one side of the church. This is done with great joy and singing of a particular antiphon. On the eve of the actual feast, vespers are sung and the antiphon is heard once again. Solemn Mass is celebrated on the Sunday morning which includes a ‘Panegyric’ or long sermon about the life of St.Cajetan. Lots more Masses used to be celebrated on the side altars of the church and in the Oratory. Nowadays on the feast day, as on Sundays, there is a regular schedule for Mass on the Main altar only. In the evening when the procession has returned, the antiphon is sung again and those present receive Benediction. Up to the 1960’s, the inside of the church used to be lavishly decorated with damask covering the massive pillars that support the roof. Around the statue of the Saint used to stand votive bouquets of ‘sempreviva’ flowers woven in cone shaped steles and the base of the statue itself surrounded by more flowers. This decoration is more subdued nowadays according to the directions of Archbishop Michael Gonzi in line with Vatican II norms. Most people should realize that the life of poverty led by St.Cajetan should have its mark even on the festivities themselves.

Start of procession

End of procession

Outside in the streets it’s a different story. The people of Hamrun, being what they are, hot blooded Mediterranean types, celebrate the feast of St.Cajetan with pomp and joy. The streets are decorated with flags and banners running across the streets and figures of angels on stands holding bunches of electric lights. There are also strings of lights strung across the streets and on the facade of the Church and on the dome. Individuals also decorate balconies with lights and pictures of the Saint especially on the procession route. Before the advent of electricity, the lights on the facade of the church used to be small oil lamps that had to be lit one by one, and so were the ones on balconies. All the best flowerpots were also brought out to decorate doorsteps!

Both Saturday evening and Sunday morning, the two bands play sets of specially composed marches through the streets of Hamrun each preceded by its young partisans waving banners of the colour of the particular band, blue for St.Joseph and red for St.Cajetan. Before the 1980’s, especially because of the different political affiliations of each band, there used to be a lot of antagonism and incidents involving fights and police broke out every year. Gladly these days are over and one can see the St.Joseph’s flag being unfurled as a sign of respect to the St.Cajetan’s band passing in front of the club. This gesture is reciprocated by the St.Cajetan’s Band Club when the St Joseph’s band is passing in front of theirs. Saturday evening the two bands start together in front of the church by first playing a popular hymn to St.Cajetan as one unit, then they go separate routes enlivening the streets of Hamrun with their music. Since the St.Cajetan band club is further down the road from the church, as the procession arrives there on Sunday, the statue of the Saint is stopped for a few minutes in front of the decorated building before proceeding to the St.Joseph band club which lies right in front of the church. With the statue in front of each band club, petards are let off from the respective roof. More about the bands in the section about Music in Hamrun.

Beside the church on the space in front of the Oratory, a special stand is assembled. This takes a full band, a choir and soloists. From here, on Friday evening, a program is presented consisting of classical music and also a special hymn in honour of St.Cajetan. From here too, a band plays a popular hymn to the Saint as the statue is brought up to the door of the church at the end of the Sunday procession.

It takes the statue about half an hour to arrive from in front of one club to the other. The participants of the procession enter the church but leave the statue with its carriers on the other side of the narrow street. This is done because the statue is quite heavy and about seven steps lead up to the main door of the church. So, at a signal, the carriers run up in a calculated rush carrying it up to the main door of the Church. All this happens amid fireworks going off from the nearby rooftops and the crowds cheering.

At this point, during the tenure of Fr.Matthew Chircop as pastor, he used to be lifted onto the base of the statue from where he used to give his personal blessing to the people. Fireworks in the olden days used to be more prolific, petards bigger and hand held ones let off by the band partisans all through the length of the march in the streets. Now the hand held ones have been rightly prohibited and the ones let of from the roofs more controlled. Another peculiarity about the celebrations is the throwing of confetti over the bands and even on the statue in the evening. This makes for a more joyous atmosphere though the mess has to be cleaned by someone the next day! In the old days, at one point where the procession passes, a huge crown used to be prepared hanging over the middle of the street. Its contents of confetti were released over the statue when the procession arrived there. Nowadays confetti are no longer thrown at the statue and people have cut down on this even over the bands. After the statue is taken into the Church, a solemn antiphon is sung and Benediction is given with the relics of St.Cajetan. So ends the feast but not the festivities, because on the next day, a Monday, lots of groups rent cars and buses and continue to celebrate at picnics on Malta's fine beaches.

The urge to celebrate the feast of St.Cajetan has in fact spilled out of Malta. The people who emigrated in the 1960's from Hamrun to Australia, have formed Clubs in a couple of places and celebrate the festa of the Saint with replicas of the statue in processions. Lately, St.Cajetan has also been celebrated in Adelaide.

Victoria - Melbourne: People from Hamrun living around Melbourne have a St.Cajetan society and they celebrate the Saint’s feast for three days. The church functions are held in the St.Theresa church of Essendon while the outside festivities with a procession with a replica of the Saint’s statue of Hamrun, give a hint as to how these emigrants used to celebrate in their native town of Hamrun. They also have marching bands and other festivities as they had back home. Picture Right.....

New South Wales - Sydney: Emigrants from Hamrun Malta to New South Wales took their devotion of St.Cajetan with them to such an extent as to celebrate his feast and a full procession with a scaled down replica of the Hamrun statue of the Saint. Festivities always end with fireworks like they used to back in Malta. The procession used to start from St.Patrick’s parish in Blacktown but nowadays the Maltese immigrants have gone one step further: They built a centre for Hamrun immigrants in the suburb of Marsden Park. A chapel dedicated to St.Cajetan has now also been built in the ample property and the celebrations are held here with the statue having a permanent place of its own. .....Picture Left.

Please see section about the History of Hamrun and also section about Music.

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