The traditional feast of St. Anthony the Abbot was celebrated on Sunday, January 16, at St. Mark's Church in Rabat. Although the circumstances of the pandemic did not allow celebrations to be held outside the Church, at the end of the mass, the Prior Provincial Father Leslie Gatt O.S.A. blessed the domestic pets in the church itself. This is an ancient tradition closely associated to this feast held in the Augustinian church of Rabat. It has been customary for the grandmaster of the Order of Saint John to send his horses to be blessed on the feast of St. Anthony. This sweet tradition has been maintained over the years and various animals are normally brought to be blessed.

The figure of St. Anthony the Abbot is closely linked to the Augustinian tradition. St. Anton's life had inspired St. Augustine at a very important moment in his life, as he himself recounts in the 8th book of his Confessions just before narrating his conversion. Though the Order of Saint Augustine was eventually erected many years later and in a different context, the Augustinian friars also has an eremitic origin, and devotion to St. Anthony was very common in their churches. The cult of this saint in St. Mark's Conventual Church in Rabat dates back several centuries. In 1806 an artistic wooden statue was also made by the sculptor Xandru Farrugia.

On Monday January 17, the liturgical feast day of Saint Anthony, the Prior Provincial than presided on the feast of Saint Anthony in the Chapel dedicated to the Saint in Xagħra Gozo.