Sergio Grech (Ed.): Monsinjur Victor Grech: Bejn Storja u Miti. Horizons, 2015. 238 pp.

They used to call them panygirics in Roman times. Now we tend to call them festschrift, a word borrowed from German, meaning a celebratory publication.

Sergio Grech, the editor of this book prefers to be more explicit and has called this celebratory publication Bejn Storja u Miti, implying more than eulogistic panegyric and a celebratory commemoration about the personality being remembered.

The volume about the loved and admired public figure, Mgr Victor Grech, is indeed an insight into the personality of this man of God and the people. It is also, and mainly so, a deep and well-spread picture of the soul of the society and soil in which the monsignore has expressed his pastoral life.

We need icons and myths in our life. People whom we tend to look at for our inspirations and provocations. Yet, people who fall under these catagories as myths and icons are the most difficult to write about. We either tend to eulogise them beyond objectivity or to take them for granted without an attentive anaylsis of their personality.

It is not an easy task to write about people whom you think you know, who have become part of your life and an inspiration, even considering them an icon in a changing society. Yet, Sergio Grech has managed to compile a work that goes beyond the superficial and the accepted.

He gathered a well assorted group of writers who have, somehow or other, known the monsignore and the result is a memoir of a man involved with love and inspiration of Christ himself, a believer in the adage “love others as much as you love yourself and your well-being”.

Mgr Grech’s words are reminiscent of Pope Francis’s sermons, filled with down-to-earth and empircal metaphors. Both have one source of inspiration: the Gospel.

Sergio Grech has managed to compile a work that goes beyond the superficial and the accepted

In the recollections gathered by those who have known him and worked with him, there is a constant, yet hidden, leit motiv. Even as a young priest, Mgr Grech had already formed and adapted a pre-conciliar mind in his pastoral and moral attiude towards the changing society, without, however, crossing the line of objective assertions.

Mgr Grech comes across as an elegant philanthroper, an aristocratic searcher of the lost sheep. Yet, as Pope Francis would put it, he never desdained to dirty his hands in the mud of the unkept streets and the unclean stables.

President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca at the book launch.

From this volume it transpires that, altough Mgr Grech never worked as a curate or a parish priest, his experience in pastoral life and his contacts with innumerable persons from all walks of life transformed him into a kappillan of Malta with powers and needs exceeding the canonical confines of a parish.

At times, he might have found himself at odds with authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, but never with his conscience. Those who know him consider him a hard-headed man, but good at heart. These are two qualities that are very important in a leader. Although he is well known for his suave and calm voice, he is adamant in speaking his mind.

He is a man who often foresaw problems and offered solutions (such as for the drug problem in Malta) ahead of those elected to do so. On a personal note, I always considered his talks on radio as an inspiration for me as a broadcaster. I never tried to emulate his unique way of communicating, but always did my best to follow his pro-fessional way of preparing and delivering a talk.

One of my favourite authors, Georges Bernanos, wrote that we cannot go to heaven on our own.

We need companions whom we have helped and loved and helped us and loved us. I’m sure that Mgr Grech has taken this admonition with heartful belief.