Hajja Salesjana - Oct-Dec 2021

H AJJA S ALESJANA A brief introduction of yourself, your family and your studies. I was born on the 13th May 1954, feast of Our Lady of Fatima and two months after St. Dominic Savio was canonized. 1954 was a Marian Year. I was born to Salvinu Vella, a very active member of the Sliema Oratory as a Cooperator, a member of the Boys Brigade and a popular figure of the Teatru Salesjan. In fact, when I was given birth by my mother, Violet, at home in Sliema, I am told that my father was on stage. He was told he had a son during the first interval and he rushed home to check on his wife and his newly born, the fourth sibling after three girls. The stage performance could only start when my father eventually returned to the Teatru. At the time the ‘Salesjani’ had a very distinguished visitor, the Rector Major of 1. How did you come to know Don Bosco? Well, with such a Salesian family background, Don Bosco was our family saint, and he was 2. Fr. Savio Vella SDB Mill-album tal-Familja Salesjana 14 the time, Don Renato Ziggiotti. I was baptised by Don Ziggiotti at St. Patrick’s Chapel and called after the new Salesian saint, Savio. It was only about fifty years later, when my father had already passed away, that my siblings realised that my name was also a composition of my parents first letters: SA for Salvinu, and VIO for Violet. I entered the Salesian congregation (some say that with such a close connection, I couldn’t escape!) and made my first profession on the 8th September 1972 in Beckford, England. I did all my religious studies at INSERM, Malta, and was ordained priest on the 6th of June 1982 by St. John Paul ll.