Mark Said, writes:

The congregation, gathered for the funeral Mass of Dr Joseph Sapiano at Luqa parish church on April 11, will long remember and hold him as their loyal and trustworthy friend and as leaving behind a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Public Registry where he served in the directorship for a good number of years; and one of the lions of the quaint village of Luqa which he genuinely held at heart.

He was a man who graced the environs of the Public Registry when it was still located in Merchants Street, Valletta, and who touched everyone with his unparalleled humility.

He had that spirit of resilience and good humour which would see anyone through more pain and tragedy than most of us will ever know.

And it would have been easy for Joe to let himself become bitter and hardened; to surrender to self-pity and regret; to retreat from public life and live out his years in peaceful quiet. No one would have blamed him for that.

But that was not Joe Sapiano. As he used to often say: “Our faults and frailties are no excuse to give in – and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.”

Through his own suffering, Joe became more alive to the plight and the suffering of others.

His life work was to champion the true worth of humility, hard work, patience and wisdom. It was to give good advice to those who were in dire need of it; to add humour in time of gloom; to make altruism stand out.

He was given the gift of time and he used that gift to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow.

We can still hear his particular voice and laughter bellowing through the Public Registry director’s chamber, face radiant, sparkling eyes, a veritable force of nature, aiming to put everyone near in high spirits.

And yet, as has been noted, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. While he might have been seen by his exceptional critic as a professional lightning rod, that’s not the prism through which Joe saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw him.

He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and platform and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect – a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots.

And that’s how Joe became one of the greatest humane characters of our time. He did it by hewing to principle, yes, but also by seeking compromise and common cause – not through deal-making and horse-trading alone, but through friendship, and kindness, and humour.

His wife, Rose, gave him strength and purpose, joy and friendship, and stood by him always, especially in those last, hardest days.

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know what God’s plan is for us.

What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, with love and joy.

And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that some day, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of others.

This is how Joe Sapiano lived. This is his legacy. 

We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy – not for the sake of ambition or vanity; not for wealth or power; but only for the people and the community that he loved.

Joe Sapiano has gone home now, guided by his faith and by the light of those that he has loved and lost, Rose, Claude and his offspring, and Marisa.

At last he is at one with the Lord, leaving those of us who grieve his passing with the memories he gave, the good that he did, the dream he kept alive, and a single, enduring image – the image of a man on a boat, white mane tousled, smiling broadly as he sails into the wind, ready for whatever storms may come, carrying on toward some new and wondrous place just beyond the horizon.

May God bless Joe Sapiano, and may he rest in eternal peace.