In the traditional celebration for the Sick and the Elderly on the occasion of the Feast of St. Rita in Valletta, the Prior Provincial fr Leslie Gatt OSA, encouraged the sick to embrace Jesus as so many saints did in the hardship of life. While they find courage in the intercession of the Saint of the impossible Saint Rita, the Prior Provincial urged them to offer their suffering for more vocations - and holy vocations - in the Church and in the Augustinian Family where Saint Rita lived her Religious Consecration.

Numerous sick people and elderly from different homes for the elderly participated in the mass, in which they received the sacrament of the Annointing of the Sick. Such celebration for the Sick and the Elderly on the days of the feast of Santa Rita in Valletta is a tradition that goes back many years and many even remember its transmission on redifuxin.

Practically this marked the beginning of the celebrations that take place in honor of Saint Rita in all the Augustinian churches around Malta. The feast of the Saint was celebrated on Saturday in the Church of Saint Mark in Rabat and in the coming weekends it will continue to be celebrated in all the other churches served by the Augustinian friars. Meanwhile on the Day of the Liturgical Feast, which falls on Wednesday 22 May, it will be celebrated solemnly in the Parish Church of Saint Augustine in Valletta, which serves as a national shrine for the devotion to the saint, and in the Church of Saint Augustine in Victoria Gozo. In both churches there will be a program of celebrations along the day and a devotional pilgrimage with the statue of the saint in the evening.