At home in the Hills with his flock
People
After celebrating his 40th anniversary as a priest with parishioners last month, Fr Fred Farrugia spoke with JENNY BRINKWORTH about his journey from the Mediterranean island of Malta to the Adelaide Hills.
Fred Farrugia shocked his family when at the age of 18 he announced his decision to become a priest. A self-confessed “troublemaker” who gave the Irish nuns a hard time at St Joseph Junior School, Blata l- Bajda, Fred even surprised his mother.
“She didn’t believe me,” Fr Fred said. “They all thought my brother, who was five years older, would be a priest…not me.”
Having helped in his grandparent’s bakery, Fr Fred initially wanted to be a baker but his father wasn’t happy about that so the plan was to continue his studies. Then he went on a youth retreat run by the Missionaries of St Paul, who educated him at the secondary level.
While priesthood wasn’t mentioned at the retreat, Fr Fred said the spiritual director “challenged us to look at ourselves and ask what do you think God wants from you at this time”.
“I was struggling a bit at the time, wondering if I should get married,” Fr Fred said.
“For five years at St Paul’s Missionary College, in Rabat (Malta) I had seen how the religious brothers and priests lived in community, it was beautiful.
“We were permitted to go into the gardens where the brothers were working. They had never been to school so they worked really hard for the community, they were wonderful, very self-sufficient…They were philosophers of life; I could talk to them about anything.”
Fr Fred entered the MSSP order’s seminary at Rabat, Malta, in 1976. Before taking his final vows in1984 he did three months pastoral experience in the order’s mission in Pakistan where he witnessed terrible suffering and poverty among the Christian population.
He was ordained with two other deacons in the former capital of Malta, Mdina, in January 1986 at the age of 27.
“It was a very cold day,” he clearly recalled. “Mdina is a very old city, so you couldn’t go in with a car, everyone had to walk and still the Cathedral was packed.
“My aunty, Sr Gemma, was a cloistered nun in Valletta. She was always praying for me and they wouldn’t let her come out for the ordination, so we surprised her and went straight to the monastery after the Mass. She was so delighted, all the nuns came out and they knelt for my blessing.”
Fr Fred’s father had died four years earlier and he remembered his mum crying because of that. “But she was happy,” he added.
After her initial surprise at his vocation decision, his mum was his greatest “companion” and when it looked like his journey was going to be delayed at one point, she said: “If God wants you to become a priest, nothing can stop you, just trust in God.”
“One thing she always talked about was forgiveness,” Fr Fred said.
Having completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Fr Fred was assigned to teach geography, history and religion at St Paul’s Missionary College.
He also took on the position of principal for three years before he was informed that he would be sent to Melbourne to be chaplain to its large Maltese community.
When he told his mother he was going to Australia she said, “I will never see you again”.
“It was hard to leave, I sat in the car and cried,” Fr Fred said.
Guilia, was only 68 but she suffered from arthritis and four months later she died suddenly.
His role as chaplain to the Maltese community took him far and wide, a challenge for Fr Fred who said he had never been in a car for longer than 20 to 30 minutes living on the small island of Malta.
With only a Melway directory to guide him back then, he often got lost.
There were also differences in Church practices and traditions which he had to adapt to and he recalled leaving midnight Mass on a warm December night and crying because he missed the Maltese winter Christmas.
After four years in Melbourne, he was called back to the island of Gozo where the order had a novitiate house.
“The Superior asked me to try to change it into a retreat centre which I did,” he said.
After seven years he was told to go on sabbatical and he decided to return to Australia and enroll in a spirituality course at the College of Divinity at Brooklyn Park in Adelaide.
Through a Maltese friend, he was introduced to Fr Charles Gauci (now Bishop of Darwin) who was responsible for a very large region, including the Fleurieu Peninsula, and he was invited to spend a year there.
“I started thinking maybe God sent me here for a reason, and after finishing a second year (in Adelaide) I talked to Archbishop Wilson about becoming a Diocesan priest,” Fr Fred said.
“He was delighted,” he said.
In 2012 Archbishop Wilson accepted him as a Diocesan priest and he was appointed assistant parish priest at Noarlunga.
After a discussion about his future with the then Vicar General Fr Philip Marshall, Fr Fred was appointed parish priest of the Adelaide Hills.
The parish had been without a permanent priest for several years and Fr Fred said there were a lot of challenges.
“There were four communities, and they were considering selling properties so there was a lot of tension,” Fr Fred said.
“The first thing I did was to say we won’t sell properties. Today we are still four communities, but we have succeeded in becoming one.
Fr Fred set about building community spirit and improving properties, including building a community centre at Birdwood, major maintenance on churches and building a new parish hall at Bridgewater.
The practical skills he learned from his beloved grandfather, including how to take apart machines in the bakery and put them back together methodically, have held him in good stead.
Importantly, his interest in wood carving and gardening, his budgies aviary and his dog, Dolly, have given him a balanced life. And every Monday he has breakfast or coffee with a friend.
As well as serving four Mass centres, Fr Fred is helping the Maltese community as much as he can as he is the only Maltese-speaking priest in the diocese.
“When I put my head on my pillow I try to forget my problems, then I wake up in the morning and I start the day again,” he said.
Fr Fred’s older brother died last year and while he couldn’t attend the funeral he returned to Malta a few months later and visited his two sisters. He told them that his plan was to remain in Australia even after retirement.
“I’m very happy to be here,” he said.
Speaking at his anniversary celebration, parish pastoral coordinator Cathie Oswald paid tribute to Fr Fred’s leadership.
“After so many years without a shepherd, we were a flock divided, a parish where two of its four churches were about to be sold, a parish where involvement by the laity was minimal,” she said.
“Today, we have four beautiful churches in use as places of worship, spiritual homes to communities.
“Despite difficulties, Father has persevered in the belief that if we lose the church, we lose the community.
“Today we are thriving, with some 160 volunteers across the parish…Father, we feel so blessed to have you in our lives. We are your Australian family. Thank you for your leadership, your love, for being the ‘heart and soul’ of our parish community, and for taking that leap of faith and responding to God’s call 40 years ago.”
