Xaghra Parish » Gallery » 2010 » FEAST OF ST ANTHONY THE ABBOT 2010 » 17 JAN 10 - LITURGICAL FEAST - THE BLESSING OF ANIMALS
The climax of the Feast of St Anthony the Abbot was reached when His Lordship Mgr. Mario Grech Bishop of Gozo blessed the crowd gathered in St Anthony Square and prayed over crop and animal. Over three hundred persons, young and old, then filed past the Bishop from whom they received the tradional small loaf of Saint Anthony the Abbot and a bag of wheat together with a holy picture of the Saint with a prayer to be recited by the family on it. They all carried their pets some decorated for the occasion. There were all sorts of pets, fur and feather, and water creatures. Topping them all was the piglet, an animal much associated with the Saint. The Bishop, as always, took it inboth hands. Instantly the animal startedgrunting high pitch toneasif it wanted to showit was happy on the feast day it considered its own.
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