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Father Felician
Bilocca O.F.M. CAP |
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Article submitted
by Josef Ebejer |
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Carmenu Bilocca later known as Fr. Felician was born
in Floriana, Malta on the 1st June 1914 the third in
a family of thirteen children. His father was
Joseph; his mother Helen nee Agius. He received his
first education at the Floriana Primary School as
the "Model School" in Valletta. His parents managed
to enrol him at Nixon school of Engineering at
Hamrun, where he started a course in electrical
engineering. At still a tender age Carmenu was doing
well in engineering studies. But as the saying goes;
Man proposes and God disposes.
At the age of 15 and who had not yet terminated his
secondary school studies in Electrical Engineering,
was accepted within the fold of the "Community of
the Little Capucchin Brotherhood" On the 24th
September 1938 was ordained priest by the Bishop of
Gozo, Mgr. Michael Gonzi. The ordination took place
at the Gozo Cathedral. During the war years Fr.
Felician was also appointed Chaplain to the Air Raid
Precautions Contingents at Tarxien, Floriana and
Żurrieq. All too often he and his brother priest
would ignore air raid warnings and assist the
injured with great risk to their lives, especially
during the bombings.
Fr. Felician spent ten years at Marsa (1949 - 1958),
nine of them as parish Priest of holy Trinity
Church. The People of Marsa appreciated the work
that Fr. Felician had done for their church. This
can be witnessed from the writing of Mr.
Anton Cassar (il-Berqa, 11/6/1954): "The
events which have taken place at the Marsa
Parish Church during these
last four years, are something |
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fantastic. They are the fruit of inspiration, hard
work, goodwill and co-operation. Together with Fr.
Saviour, the Church's Procurator, he managed to
contribute for the works of art which today
embellish the Marsa Parish Church." Mr Cassar also refers to the gold
leaf on the frame of the titular painting together
with the gold adornment of the ceiling: "It cost
Lm700 which our Parish Priest managed to collect
within ten hours of appealing to the congregation
one Sunday morning."
Fr. Felician possessed great ease of expression,
both verbally and in his writings - talents which
are not easily found together in modern day writers.
His journalistic career started in 1943. He wrote
more than a thousand articles in Maltese, English,
Italian and Latin. Many of his writings appeared in
the paper "Għawdex", and from 1947 onward he
was a regular subscriber to the paper "Leħen
is-Sewwa" Even as a friar, Fr. Felician is
associated with Public Broadcasting in Malta. He
gave his contribution to this institution for 30
years, first on Rediffusion (later called Cable
Radio) and then on Radio and Television.
On the 5th May 1987 Fr. Felician who was 73 years
old passed away into the hands of our Lord. He had
spent 58 years of them in the Community of the
Little Brothers of the Capucchin brotherhood. |
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