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. The week before it brought something the church had never had before: the relic of St Carlo Acutis, which was here 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, where it has sat for years. The celebrations opened on Saturday 19 September with a day of prayer for peace, and the Forty Hours will lead into the Sunday from Thursday 24.
Top Tip: The 9.30am Mass on Sunday 27 September will be in English, which makes it the easiest way into the feast if you don’t speak Maltese.
The Relic of St Carlo Acutis, 20 to 23 September
The relic of St Carlo Acutis spent four days in Xagħra. The rector, Dun Joe Said, said the point of bringing it was to help people understand what it means to adore Jesus present in the Eucharist, the thing Acutis himself was known for.
It arrived at noon on Sunday 20 September at the small Madonna tal-Fiduċja chapel inside the Ispigolatriċi house on Triq Ġnien Xibla. It stayed there for personal prayer until the evening. At 5.45pm it was carried in pilgrimage to the Nazzarenu church, with the Scouts band and the Xagħra Scout Group walking alongside. At the 6.30pm solemn Mass, babies and young children were presented to the saint.
For the next three days the relic stayed in the church for veneration, from 6am to 11am and again from 4pm to 8.30pm. Each day had its own theme. Monday was given to charity and volunteers, and the Caritas food collection started that evening. Tuesday belonged to children and teenagers, with a Mass marking the start of the catechism year and the Xewkija children’s choir, Ulied il-Battista. Wednesday was the day for the elderly and the sick. It began with a 9am Mass led by the rector of Ta’ Pinu, alongside the Xagħra Day Centre and the local council, and ended with the farewell to the relic after the evening Mass, sung by the Gozo Diocesan Choir.
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 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 2026 Programme: Forty Hours to Feast Day
The Forty Hours will begin on Thursday 24 September, and the next three days will follow the same pattern. Mass at 6am will open the adoration, a second Mass at 7am will carry it through to 11.30am, and the church will open again for adoration at 4pm. Psalms and Sacramental Benediction will follow at 6pm, then a solemn Mass at 6.30pm. Thursday is the day for vocations, and its evening Mass will be led by Dun Joseph Attard, with Ivan Attard singing.
Friday 25 September will be given to priests and religious. Members of Catholic Action will lead an hour of adoration from 10.30am. The 6.30pm solemn Mass will be led by Dun Michael Curmi, archpriest of Sannat, with the Sannat choir Ulied Margerita.
Saturday 26 September, the eve, will be the day for families. Confessions will be heard from 5pm to 7pm and solemn First Vespers will be sung at 6pm. At 6.30pm Bishop George Bugeja will lead a solemn Mass with the couples’ group Familji Flimkien. Married couples in the church will renew their wedding vows, and the Maranatha choir will sing. The church will stay open from 9pm to 11pm for silent adoration and confession.
Sunday 27 September is the feast day and the day of the community. Masses will be held at 6am, at 7.30am (led by Archpriest Canon Daniel Sultana), at 9.30am in English and at 10.30am. Second Vespers will be sung at 4.30pm. At 5pm Bishop Anton Teuma will lead the solemn concelebration with the Chapter and clergy of the diocese, and the procession with the Blessed Sacrament will follow, with the Victory band playing religious hymns. After the procession, the feast will end with Cash & Band, a wine, pizza and timpana party, and spot prizes.
There is one more date after the feast. On Sunday 4 October at 10.30am the church will hold a solemn Mass and a blessing of animals to mark 800 years since the death of St Francis of Assisi. Everyone will be welcome, animals included.
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.