Since this year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary since the demise of the first parish priest of Marsascala it is appropriate to say something about him so that his memory will not be forgotten.
Fr. Tarċisio Agius was born in Żabbar on the 5th of May 1914, to Carmelo Agius and Felicita nee Muscat. He was the youngest child among a family of fourteen. He studied at the Żabbar primary school and then entered the seminary. He was ordained priest in Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta on the 25th of July 1937 by the Bishop of Gozo Msgr. Michael Gonzi. The following day, on the feast of Saint Anne, he celebrated his first mass at the parish church of Żabbar. Between 1937 and 1943 he lectured at the College of St. Aloysius in Birkirkara. In 1943 he became the fifth Vicar Curate of Marsascala and there served with great dedication. It was he who in 1944 introduced the Christian doctrine society called ‘Museum’ in Marsascala. He taught children of the village and sought to set up a government school.
During his parish life he wanted three things mainly. The first was the ordering of a new statue of Saint Anne after receiving a donation from Spiru Vella who was saved from war attacks along with three of his sons. The second was for Marsascala to become a parish. Indeed the decree of the new parish was published by Archbishop Gonzi on the 15th of March 1949 in which it stated that Fr. Tarċisio had become the first parish priest. He took possession of the parish on the 19th of March of that same year. The third wish was that he wanted to build a new church after receiving a donation from the Countess Carmela Apap Bologna. On the 10th of May 1959, he opened the first part of the church and the first mass was celebrated.
On the 30th of November 1960, he resigned from the parish due to ill health and moved to Balzan. There he resumed teaching religious studies at Secondary school. However he did not last long as on the 30th of July 1966 he went to meet the Lord at the age of 52, 4 days after having celebrated his last mass on the feast of Saint Anne, as he had celebrated his first mass.
It is said that when he was going to build the church of Marsascala, Fr.Tarċisio was going to change the titular of the parish to Our Lady of Lourdes, but on the advice of St. George Preca he did not.
St. George Preca wrote (“Ktieb tas-Sinjali” <"Book of Signs">, Edit. 1982, p30) that one of the signs of a true devotee of Mary is to honour Saint Anne and Saint Joachim to whom Mary showed much respect and honour. In his writing “Is-Sinagoga l-Ġdida” <"The New Synagogue "> he imagined the saints speaking to us, where in paragraph 34 he imagined St. Anne telling us:
"My beloved brothers and sisters, listen and understand: if Mary My Daughter, by her visit to Elizabeth and living there for 3 months filled with grace that material house, who can say with what grace and blessings she filled me, that for so many months held her inside my womb and for many years brought her up! If from a fruit you can recognize the tree, from the magnitude of my Daughter Mary you can imagine what was mine, as Her mother. Turn towards me and you will not be disappointed."
I take this occasion to pray for the soul of Fr. Tarċisio Agius, and in our prayers would also like to remember the new parish priest of Marsascala, Father Roderick Camilleri who has recently begun his work in this parish that he may shepherd his people according to God's heart.
Father Hermann Duncan O.Carm