The 73rd birthday is not a milestone like 18 or 60 or 80 years of age. It is another year like and different from the one before it and the one after, if, that is, there will be one after it. It is another stark reminder that one has behind him much more than one has before him.

I was born on November 4, 1950. As this is my last commentary before turning 73 (though I hope there will be many after) bear with me for sharing a few life experiences that formed me.

November 4 is the eve of Guy Fawkes Day and the feast of St Charles Borromeo.

I do not admire Guy Fawkes’s attempt to blow up parliament (mind you, the British Parliament) but I admire his non-conformism and for a good reason. What marked these 73 years was the non-conformist attitude I inherited from both my father and my mother. This was coupled with the commitment to do what one believes is right, to fight for it even publicly even if you have to pay a hefty price for it. Any price is less onerous than compromising one’s conscience and values.

I hold dear a particular moment with my father who, at a very old age, suffered from dementia. While pushing his wheelchair, I tried to persuade him not to keep on doing what he wanted to do. “We are told not to do that,” I said.

He stopped and looked sternly at me: “I never did what I was told by someone just because someone told me. I only did what I believed should be done. Do the same my son.” I was taken aback.

Dementia robbed my father of many things but not of the essential that crystallised his whole life. Looking back, I realise that disobeying my father in this respect will not be one of the sins St Peter will find me guilty of when I eventually meet him. 

The second most important asset from my parents’ inheritance was the joyful duty of caring for the poor and the vulnerable. I remember my mother and father always helping anyone who needed their help. I remember children sharing meals with us in our two-roomed house at what was then St Anthony Street (now named, I think,  Bir-Bal, Ħal Balzan).

Sharing with those in need, whoever they may have happen to be, was the bedrock of our upbringing.

This second quality characterises Borromeo (whose feast, like my birthday, is on November 4), more than it characterises Guy Fawkes. The saint is known for his attitude of caring for people and for wanting them to know that the Church cared about them, too.

I do not for a millisecond pretend to be a latter-day Borromeo. Far from it. He is a saint. I am a sinner.

But an uncle influenced (or,  at least, tried to influence) the role both of us played in the Church. His uncle was a pope, so Charles became a cardinal. Mine wasn’t. His ambition for me was much lower. Iz-ziju Mikiel was a good man, whose two passionate loves were for his family and for Santa Liena and the basilica.

I just happen to believe in a different kind of Church- Fr Joe Borg

I was born in Ħal Balzan. My uncle wanted to have me baptised in St Helen’s Basilica. If I were to be baptised there instead of at Ħal Balzan – a mere parish – I would have the right to become a canon as my surname was Borg, the same as the founder of the chapter of canons. The Balzan parish priest was not impressed. But the vicar general, bishop Galea, gave his assent and so it was to be.

A few weeks after my priestly ordination I vividly remember Ziju Mikiel telling me that there was a vacancy. The post could be mine, he said. His face changed from a beaming countenance to one aghast with disbelief when I told him that I was not interested. I have nothing except respect for those who accept such titles, some of them good friends, who even became canons in two or three different chapters.

I hope they respect my oddness and strange ways. But I believe there are other fish to fry. I just happen to believe in a different kind of Church. In my commentary in this paper dated September 14, 2014, I encapsulated my vision of the Church through the use of four metaphors: rainbow, river, pilgrim and Areopagus.

At the Faculty of Theology, we were taught that “there is no salvation outside the Church”. However, like Fr Otsu in Endo’s novel Deep River, I learned that many times there is salvation outside the Church. Moreover, I also learned that, sometimes, there is no salvation in the Church.

Like Fr Rank in Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter I learned that “The Church knows all the rules. But it does not know what goes on in a single human heart”. Consequently, for a priest to truly be a priest, he should always be merciful without ever being judgmental.

I find particular inspiration and comfort in the words of the hunted priest in The Fugitive (1947), the film of Catholic director John Ford loosely based on Greene’s masterpiece The Power and the Glory. How truthful is the statement: “The priesthood is large, it’s tremendous; I was always too small for it.”

In these 73 years, I have learned that the priesthood is greater and more beautiful than anyone can live it. I have learned that the healing power of the love of God drives away the pain that is self-inflicted by the banality of sin.

On the cusp of reaching 73 I pray that like Bernanos’s unnamed curé in The Diary of a Country Priest I learn and teach that “all is grace”.