Ġesù Nazzarenu Feast in Xagħra 2026: The Carlo Acutis Relic and What to Expect
Xagħra has two feasts, and almost nobody visiting the island knows about the second one. Three weeks after the fireworks and the crowds of Il-Vitorja, the church of Jesus of Nazareth at the bottom end of the village holds its own titular feast, and it works nothing like the first. There is no titular statue carried through the streets. What goes out in procession is the Blessed Sacrament.
In 2026 the feast falls on Sunday 27 September, and the week before it brings something the church has never had: the relic of St Carlo Acutis, from 20 to 23 September.
When Is the Ġesù Nazzarenu Feast 2026?
The feast day is Sunday 27 September 2026, the last Sunday of the month, which is where it has sat for years. The celebrations run for roughly nine days before it. In 2025 they opened on the 20th and closed on the 28th, so expect something similar.
Top Tip: the parish does not publish the programme early. Last year’s went out on 9 September, nine days before the feast began. If you are planning around specific evenings rather than the Sunday, that is when to look, and we will add the 2026 detail here as soon as it appears.
The Relic of St Carlo Acutis, 20 to 23 September
The relic of St Carlo Acutis will be at the Ġesù Nazzarenu church for veneration from 20 to 23 September 2026. The rector, Dun Joe Said, has said the point of bringing it is to help people understand what it means to adore Jesus present in the Eucharist, the thing Acutis himself was known for. Across those four days there will be moments of prayer for families, for the sick and the elderly, and for young people, plus a feast for children and teenagers before the catechism year starts.
Carlo Acutis was canonised on 7 September 2025 by Pope Leo XIV, the first saint of the millennial generation. He was born in London in 1991, died in Monza in 2006 at fifteen, and spent much of his short life building a website that catalogued Eucharistic miracles around the world. His tomb in Assisi, where he lies in jeans and trainers, has drawn enormous numbers of young pilgrims since.
Why This Feast Is Not Like the Others
Every other feast on Gozo is organised around a statue. The titular comes out of its niche, goes up on a pedestal, is carried through the streets on the Sunday and put back a few days later. The bands, the marches and the fireworks all hang off that.
The Nazzarenu feast is Eucharistic. Its full name is the Kwaranturi Mqaddsa u Festa Ġesù Nazzarenu, the Solemn Forty Hours and the feast of Jesus of Nazareth. Three days of continuous adoration lead up to the Sunday, and the procession at the end carries the Blessed Sacrament rather than a statue. The Victory Band walks with it playing religious hymns, and it finishes with the sacramental blessing rather than a pedestal and a firework finale.
The first titular feast here was held in July 1911. The procession with the Blessed Sacrament went out for the first time in 1948. Somewhere between those two dates the feast moved to the end of September, which is where it has stayed.
If you have been to Il-Vitorja and thought you had seen how Gozo does a festa, this is the one that shows you the other half of the tradition.
What the Week Usually Looks Like
The 2026 programme is not out yet. What follows is the shape of 2025, which is the best guide we have until the parish publishes.
The opening weekend is given to families and then to young people, with a train ride and activities for children on the Saturday afternoon, a mass with the blessing of children and families, and a festa meal beside the church with live music. There is a mass in English on the Sunday morning, which is unusual for a village feast and useful if you are visiting.
The middle of the week takes a theme a day: peace, then charity and volunteering, when food is collected for the diocesan Caritas. Then the Forty Hours begin, and the rhythm changes completely. Adoration runs from the six o’clock mass through to late morning, opens again at four, and the evening builds through a meditated rosary and benediction to the solemn mass at half six. One of those days belongs to the sick and the elderly, with a morning mass alongside the Xagħra Centre for the Elderly and a tombola afterwards run by the local council.
The eve brings solemn first vespers and a concert in the church. On the feast day itself there are masses through the morning, including one in English, second vespers in the afternoon, and the solemn concelebration at five, followed by the procession with the Eucharist. It ends with a singer, wine, pizza and timpana on the zuntier, open to anyone who is there.
The Maranatha choir sings most of the week. They are the church’s own, founded decades ago, and the name means come, Lord Jesus.
The Church, and the Priest Who Drew His Own Plans
The Nazzarenu church exists because the bottom end of Xagħra was too far from the parish church for people to walk to mass. Dun Ġużepp Diacono, the last parish priest and first archpriest of the Xagħra Collegiate, drew the plans for it himself. He was not an architect. He simply considered himself one, and he had done it before: the churches at Qala and Għasri are his, and so is the dome of the Xagħra Basilica, built in 1892 and the first of its size on the island.
The foundation stone was laid on 20 September 1903 by Bishop Ġwann Marija Camilleri. It took five years to build, was blessed in 1909, and was consecrated in November 1931 by Bishop Mikiel Gonzi. The convent of the Franciscan Sisters of the Heart of Jesus went up alongside it, an order Diacono had founded himself, and the sisters took over the running of the church in 1936.
The art inside is better than the building’s size suggests. The titular painting is by Lażżru Pisani, finished in 1908. There are twelve paintings of the apostles: Peter and Paul by Ġużeppi Call, the other ten by Virgilio Monti, who also painted the ceiling and dome of the Basilica up the road. Most of the statues are by Wistin Camilleri. There is a German pipe organ dating from 1960, installed in the gallery in 2016.
One more thing links this church to the big feast at the top of the village. When the statue of Marija Bambina was crowned on 2 September 1973, it came down here in procession from the Basilica and stayed for several days. It happened again in 1998 for the silver jubilee of the coronation, and the anniversary is still marked each September with a march.
These details come from an article by Raymond Mifsud published in the Xagħra parish’s Christmas 2018 magazine, held in the University of Malta’s open access repository.
Where to Stay
The Nazzarenu church sits in the lower part of Xagħra, a short walk from the square. Anywhere in the village puts you within reach of both this feast and Il-Vitorja three weeks earlier, and our guide to where to stay in Xagħra has the full run of options. Late September is one of the better times to be here, with the heat off and the accommodation prices with it.
Getting There and Home Again
Xagħra is about ten minutes from Victoria by road, and buses run to the village square through the day. This feast finishes earlier than most, with the procession on the Sunday evening rather than at midnight, so getting home is less of a problem than it is at a statue festa. Buses still thin out after about 9pm, so plan on Bolt or eCabs if you are staying elsewhere on the island. Full details are in our guide to getting to and around Gozo.
Xagħra’s second feast is the quieter one, and the more unusual of the two. If you are on Gozo at the end of September it is worth an evening, and this year more than most. Our Xagħra feast guide covers Il-Vitorja earlier in the month, and our Gozo village feasts guide has the whole calendar.