Rob Galea is a writer and performer of spiritual music. It’s uplifting and joyful. Rob knows what he is writing about as he is priest with a parish in Shepparton but he’s also an evangelist, wanting to take the message of faith through his music to wherever he can. Right now Father Rob is in Madrid for the World Youth Day celebrations but in March next year he will be touring Tasmania.
It will be a case of from an Island to an Island but the Island Father Rob originates from is not Australia. Father Rob is from Malta, a tiny island on the map settled in the Mediterranean between Sicily and North Africa. So tiny is this island that it’s occasionally missed on maps.
Rob is from St Julian’s in the main island of Malta, a bustling tourist section of the town known ironically by the spelling Pace. It’s ironic too that in that city there is a monument/sculpture called ‘Love’ which is the word itself carved out and reflecting in the waters flowing by.
It is a city landmark which could well summarise Rob himself
Rob’s ministry is one of love. Indeed the picture on the cover of his newly released DVD “Reach Out – Live in Concert” is a hand reaching out to switch on a light globe. Rob is trying to switch that light globe on for those that have been living in the darkness. He especially works with young people, some in juvenile facilities. Young people are very important to Rob because he has been through troubled teenage years.
From a rebellious youth in a country so steeped in its saintly traditions, (Saint Paul was shipwrecked there), Rob grew up with little attachment to religion at all.
When he was around 11 years old he decided he had little in common with his family and he ran away from home. What happened next was a time spiralled with addictions of various kinds, a time of emptiness anger and depression until one day Father Rob was invited in to a meeting of a religious community he immediately felt encompassed in love and caring and the acceptance he had been searching for.
This was his conversion. Rob joined the seminary and began his studies. In that time he was assigned to Australia for work experience and fell in love with his new home. He saw it as a place he could minister and settled at St Brendans.
Since that time he participated in the last world youth day In Sydney singing with fellow Maltese/Australian opera singer Amelia Farrugia as well as Guy Sebastian and Paulini.
Father Rob is a trend setting priest in that he uses props in his homilies to make a point. In Father Rob’s homily about the Holy Spirit. Father Rob introduced a toy battery operated helicopter…one he bought with the promise that it could do ‘lots of stuff’. It failed to do anything because he had not put batteries in it. Father Rob used this to explain the Holy Spirit … that we all have potential but we need power to ignite that potential.
Father Rob’s CD’s and DVD’s can be purchased from his ‘That’s Worship’ site http://thatsworship.com/home. You can also refer to the site for updates on Father Rob’s touring dates as they are confirmed.
Paula Xiberras
