To the knights and dames of Malta "spirituality" is the basis not only of a relationship with God, but of a "chivalric vocation" assumed for life. The Order of Malta has been a religious institution since 1113, the year it was recognised by Pope Paschal II. As a religious order, it is linked to the Holy See, but at the same time it is independent as a sovereign subject of international law (a "micro-state"). The eight-pointed cross which symbolises the Order represents the eight Beatitudes and is thus a visual memento of its spirituality.

Simply expressed, "spirituality" is the way we accept the Faith and approach God through prayer and by living His Word. What is here referred to as the "ethos" of the Order of Malta is our ideal and expectation of the comportment of the Christian knight or dame in view of Roman Catholic teaching in the face of the increasingly complex challenges of modern life.

The religious character of the Order of Malta co-exists with its full sovereignty. The Grand Master is at the same time head of a sovereign State and head of a religious Order. In this second capacity the Holy Roman Church accords him the rank and precedence of a Cardinal even though he is not an ordained cleric.

The Order of Malta is a lay religious order according to Canon Law, where some of its members are religious (having professed the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience), while others have taken a special vow of obedience, though the great majority of the knights and dames are lay members. The Grand Master of the Order is elected from among the Professed Knights of Perpetual Vows and serves for life. While certain knights and dames take vows (but not ordination to the priesthood), clergy are admitted as chaplains or ecclesiastical knights.

Being invested as a knight or dame of Malta is indeed a distinguished honour, but great and many are the distinctions between the military religious orders (such as the Order of Malta) and the numerous state and dynastic orders bestowed for merit or achievement. According to the Constitutional Charter, members of the Order of Malta are required to maintain exemplary Christian behaviour in their private and public lives, contributing to the maintenance of the Order's traditions. The Pope appoints a Cardinal as his representative to the Order, the Cardinalis Patronus, whose duty it is to promote the spiritual interests of the Order and of its members and to maintain relations with the Holy See.

The Pope also appoints the Prelate of the Order from the three candidates proposed by the Grand Master. The Prelate is the ecclesiastical Superior of the Order's clergy. The principal feast of the Order is Saint John's Day, 24 June.

The Order remains true to its inspiring principles: defence of the Faith and service to the suffering. Its members share the same vocation and strive together for solidarity, justice and peace, based on the teaching of the Gospels and in the closest communion with the Holy See. They are involved in active and dynamic charity supported by prayer.

Wherever they established themselves, the Knights Hospitaller always founded a Hospital and Hospice and then, if they needed to, built defence fortifications. If castles are no longer necessary, what does being a Hospitaller mean in the Third Millennium? It means dedicating oneself to easing suffering and to bringing the balm of Christian charity to the sick, anywhere in the world, not only in hospitals but also in private homes and nursing homes in the shanty towns of destitute populations. The Order does not only dedicate itself to the sick, but to the socially isolated, the victims of persecution and the refugees of any race and religious faith as well.

Understandably, a very simple question is occasionally posed by those unfamiliar with the hospitaller orders, namely: "What is the difference between the Order of Malta and, on the other hand, various 'secular' charities dedicated to such work as emergency medical relief?"

Firstly, it should be said that all such institutions are to be recognised and commended for performing much-needed work around the world, and the Order of Malta collaborates with these whenever possible --collaboration, rather than "competition," being a guiding principle in the quest to alleviate human suffering. Having existed for nine centuries, the Order of Malta, with its hospice traditions over many centuries, was one of the principal influences for today's numerous charitable organisations. Even its use of the cross as its symbol was imitated by some (the only other order of knights engaged in similar works was Saint Lazarus, represented by a green cross). Because its ethos reflects, in toto, the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the Order of Malta has a special view of the sanctity of human life which "secular" organisations and hospitals do not always share. For example, the Order opposes abortion, euthanasia and various other medical and biological practices which threaten the sanctity of human life. (That said, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta is not "political" in the common sense of that term, as it is does not support any particular political party in any nation; the Order is not a "human rights" organisation but an emergency-relief and medical aid organisation.) Though its ranks over the centuries had a distinctly aristocratic character, nearly forty percent of today's knights and dames worldwide were invested into the Order in grades lacking this requirement. Moreover, being a knight or dame of Malta (unlike membership in most other charitable organisations) is a lifelong commitment.

The exercise of Christian charity is a pragmatic act of giving. Spirituality (or "mysticism") itself transcends the superficial and even the tangible. Becoming a knight or dame of Malta is not simply a question of having been baptised as a Catholic or born into a certain social class. Rather, it presupposes that a postulant advocates the moral teachings of the Church and takes an active role in assisting people in need. Even outside the Order proper, bestowal of its Order of Merit (pro merito melitensi), with which non-Catholics may be decorated, presumes that the conferee so recognised supports Christian values and ideals.

Within the Catholic Church, the orders of chivalry differ from "modern" lay religious institutions (Opus Dei, Focolare, etc.) not only in their canonical status but in their histories and traditions as part of the fabric of a wider society in Britain, in the Holy Land, around the Mediterranean and across western Europe. Nor does the Order of Malta function in the same manner as various "secular" fraternal organisations which support a generic idea of community service. Knighthood is a specific institution distinctive of others; the rite of investiture of a knight or dame of Malta is a religious ceremony rooted in the twelfth century. The Order's mission to "our lords the sick" has not changed in its nine hundred years of history.

In its life and in its works, the position of the Order of Malta is that altruism is not simply an intrinsic (genetic) human instinct but a profoundly Christian one, and that it should be an obligation joyfully assumed for life.

The obligations of poverty, chastity and obedience are more than mere words. The condition of professed knights (the monastic knights addressed with the title "Frà") is well defined. As monks, they observe chastity as well as poverty and obedience. Lay knights and dames "in obedience" live according to their state of life. Their "poverty" implies following a simple --if dignified-- lifestyle free from excessive luxury or the undue pursuit of worldly pleasures. The previous Grand Master, Frà Andrew Bertie, expressed this well by citing a typically modern example when he said that if somebody must wear a watch it need not be something as lavishly expensive as a Rolex.

Prayer is essential. Yet spirituality is reflected not only in one's relationship with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit, but in his or her rapport with people encountered daily. This essence of true Christianity is the epitome of true chivalry, for:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself." --Matthew 22:37-39

In the words of His Eminence Pio Laghi, Cardinalis Patronus of the Order and Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Catholic Education, "the obligation to defend the Faith that each knight and dame assumed at the moment of being admitted to our Sovereign Order requires, first of all, that we have not only a good understanding, but a profound and solid understanding, of the truths of the Faith in Christ which we profess."

While Christians believe in the brotherhood of all God's children, in our "oecumenical" times it should be remembered that the Christian spirituality of the Order of Malta is specifically Roman Catholic in nature and form, and therefore not open to interpretation outside the Magisterium of the Holy Roman Church. Though the Holy See acknowledges the importance of the spirituality of the "sister churches" in the East (the Orthodox Churches), whose orders (sacraments) it recognises and whose early (pre-1054) canons it shares, the Order of Saint John of the Hospital of Jerusalem was founded as a specifically Roman Catholic institution influenced initially by the Benedictine and Augustinian Rules. The annual pilgrimage to Lourdes is but a single example of the devotion of the knights and dames of the Order to the spiritual needs of the sick, and support of the hospital operated by the Order in Bethlehem is a response to physical needs.

Here we have considered the spirtuality and ethos espoused by the knights and dames of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. There are a dozen other orders which, through their organisational structure, history, good works and longstanding traditions, may be classed --albeit very broadly-- as "military-religious" though not all are exclusively Roman Catholic. Each is a distinctive institution bestowed by a legitimate fons honorum (fount of honour) and some enjoy a special status and recognition in Catholic canon law; a few are among the oldest orders of chivalry bestowed today and several have changed institutionally over time. These are: the Most Venerable Order of Saint John in the British Realm, the Johanniterorden (in Germany, Sweden and The Netherlands), the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the Order of Saint Mary of Jerusalem (Teutonic Order), the Spanish monastic-military orders (Alcantara, Montesa, Santiago, Calatrava), the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Royal House of Savoy regnant until 1946), the Constantinian Order of Saint George (Royal House of Bourbon of the Two Sicilies regnant until 1861), the Order of Saint Stephen (Grand Ducal House of Hapsburg of Tuscany regnant until 1860).

The aforesaid are the only historical "military-religious" orders which are in some manner recognised as such by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and the only ones with which direct association (i.e. membership) by knights and dames of Malta is permitted. The Most Venerable Order of Saint John in the British Realm shares with the Order of Malta a common heritage and role formally recognised by both orders since 1963; the Constantinian Order of Saint George represents a tangible historical link, as Malta was a nominal protectorate of the Two Sicilies (more specifically the Kingdom of Sicily) until 1798 and the displaced knights of Malta then obtained refuge in that realm for several decades following their loss of the islands of Malta and Gozo. The five Papal orders (Order of Christ, Order of the Golden Spur, Pian Order, Order of Saint Gregory the Great, Order of Saint Sylvester) are not military-religious in nature. Today the Order of the Temple, suppressed in 1312, survives only in that it was succeeded by the rarely-bestowed Order of Christ.

The definitive reference work describing these orders in the context of the Roman Catholic Church is Orders of Knighthood, Awards and the Holy See, Second Edition (1985), by Hyginus Eugene Cardinale and Peter Bander van Duren. The most complete general historical work on the military-religious orders is The Monks of War, Revised Edition (1995), by Desmond Seward, himself a knight of Malta in the British Association.

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