On Thursday 25th February 1988 Fr. Marjan Vella died at the Franciscan friary of our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Sliema, Malta. He was 60 years old. This year the Maltese Franciscan OFM Province is commemorating the 25th anniversary of the death of this Franciscan poet.
Marjan Vella was born in Sliema on 14th December 1927. He studied at Stella Maris College and the Lyceum. In 1945 he joined the Franciscan Order and entered the Maltese OFM Province of St. Paul. He was ordained priest in 1952. Although he did not attend higher studies after his ordination, Fr. Marjan had an expert knowledge of the Italian language and literature, and in 1960 became Lector (lecturer) of Italian at the Studium of the Maltese Franciscan Province.
During his life as a Franciscan Fr. Marjan lived for some time in Gozo, but spent many years of his priestly ministry in the friary and parish of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (Madonna tas-Sacro Cuor) in Sliema. During the early years of his priestly ministry Fr. Marjan dedicated himself to catechism in the Franciscan parish of Sliema by opening a catechetical centre, first in Camenzuli Street, and then in Rosa Street (today known as Patri Marjanu Vella Street), where in 1957 he was appointed rector of the chapel and catechetical centre. In those days the chapel lay within the precincts of the Franciscan parish of Sliema, but since 1974 it is found within the confines of the Carmelite parish of Balluta. Nevertheless, the chapel and pastoral centre were still left under the care of the Franciscans, particularly after they were rebuilt by the Maltese Franciscan Province and inaugurated on 8th January 1994, when Fr. Bernard Bartolo († 8th January 2005) was director of the Pastoral Centre, which was renamed “Ġesù, il-Ħabib” (Jesus, the Friend). On 28th April 2009 the remains of both Fr. Marjan and Fr. Bernard were exhumed from the Franciscan chapel at the Addolorata Cemetery and reburied in the Pastoral Centre.
Fr. Marjan remained famous on the local scene not only as a Franciscan friar, but especially as a poet. He was the author of various collections of poems in the Maltese language. He began writing poetry when he was still a student at the Lyceum in 1941. His first poems were published in “Leħen il-Malti” and in an anthology edited by the late Professor Ġużè Aquilina. From 1958 Fr. Marjan published various collections of poetry. These include: Ġiżimin Aħmar (1958), Dgħajjes tal-Karti (1969), Ħitan tas-Sejjieħ (1975), Ġarġir mal-Ħerża, and Qoffa Riħ (1985), published by Edizzjoni TAU with an introduction by Professor Oliver Friggieri. Many of his poems were published as text books for the school syllabus in Maltese literature, and in 1975 he received the Rotmans Prize for the collection Ħitan tas-Sejjieħ.
During the last years of his life Fr. Marjan wrote two Oratorios, one entitled Il-Madonna tas-Sacro Cuor and the other one Demm fuq il-Verna. Both were eventually performed in various localities, including St. John’s Co-Cathedral, under the direction of Professor Maestro Joseph Vella, who also wrote the music and orchestrated the same Oratorios. The first Oratorio centred upon Fr. Marjan’s devotion to his home parish, the Franciscan parish of the Madonna tas-Sacro Cuor in Sliema, whereas the second one was born out of his love for St. Francis of Assisi, of whom he dramatically describes in verse the episode of the stigmatisation on La Verna in 1224. Demm fuq il-Verna was also published posthumously in 1989 by Edizzjoni TAU as a tribute to the Franciscan poet, with an introduction and presentation by Fr. Norbert Ellul Vincenti OFM and Professor Oliver Friggieri.
Fr. Marjan’s love for the Franciscan way of life is also seen in his great contribution to the publication of the Writings of Saint Francis in the Maltese language, even before the critical edition published in 1982 by Edizzjoni TAU, which utilised, for example Fr. Marjan’s splendid free rendering of the Canticle of Creatures, resulting in a beautiful work of art in the Maltese language. Fr. Marjan also translated into poetic form the hymns and lyrical compositions of the Roman-Seraphic Breviary, when it was translated in Maltese at the end of the 1970’s. Fr. Marjanu was also the author of some short biographies of Maltese Franciscans, and particularly the biography of the Maltese Blessed Nazju Falzon, Glorja tal-Kleru Malti, republished by Edizzjoni TAU on the occasion of the beatification of Nazju Falzon in 1990.
Fr. Marjan spent many months in hospital before he died in 1988. During that period he composed other poems which deal particularly with the experience of suffering of his last illness, to which he succumbed in the Sliema friary on the morning of 25th February 1988.
When describing Fr. Marjan’s poetry, Professor Friggieri often mentions this Franciscan’s timid character, his deep faith and religious sense to suffering, as well as his ability to break the rigid schemes of insularity and be more universal in his outlook when writing poetry. His hermetic style, which seems hard to understand, is however a way of expressing his inner feelings in a free but sincere way, so that “his lyrics are original and very personal.” Fr. Marjan Vella will always be remembered for “the musicality of his verses, the insistence upon the creation of a metaphoric environment of poetry, the wise employment of rhythm and other literary characteristics, such as the beauty of sound of the words, all of which stand out as the main elements of each period of his life dedicated to poetry.”
