Gracefest

Gracefest Tasmania attracts many people from across the Archdiocese who enjoy food stalls and networking opportunities, prayer and worship, and a concert performed by well-known Australian Christian entertainers including Stephen Kirk and Fr Rob Galea.

In 2019, Tasmanian Gracefest and Festival Day events were held in Devonport, Launceston and Hobart and attracted students and young adults who said they were inspired by Fr Rob Galea’s personal journey and took home lessons for their own lives and the hope that they can experience happiness.

For the school sessions, Fr Rob shared his journey from addiction and loneliness to encountering Jesus through prayer, joining a youth group and beginning his walk of faith. In Launceston, the talk for young adults focused on overcoming fear while in Hobart the message was on the importance of not simply giving, but on receiving God’s love.

“It’s so easy to love and to give, but it’s so hard to shut up and let God love us,” Fr Rob said at the Hobart event.

Each session ended with a time of prayer and Eucharistic adoration.

Despite the intensity of his schedule, the Maltese-born priest said that each time he comes to Tasmania his heart “is filled” and that the young people here are thirsty to hear the Word of God.

“Every time I come here my heart is filled. The response is just incredible. There’s such an incredible thirst among young people, and the attention and the hunger they have for the Word of God is amazing.”

He says that young people often don’t know their dignity, and so one focus he has is calling them to hope.

“Very often, one of the things I find is that young people don’t understand their dignity, they don’t understand their purpose, and this is what we do throughout these sessions, is I give my testimony or I give a talk on a topic, just to help people understand their potential, help them understand that they are called and loved by God, and they are called to greatness.

“And understanding that they can do it in spite of the difficulties, in spite of the darkness sometimes that they face, and that they are created to be warriors and earth-shakers, world-changers.”

In Launceston, 22-year-old Michelle said Fr Rob’s words about overcoming fear really ‘hit home’.

“Especially with being a uni student, there’s a lot of things, a lot of ups and downs you know, you have a lot of instances where you feel a lot of fear and just knowing that there’s someone who’s felt the same thing but has overcome it … I feel like that was something that I’ll definitely take from here tonight.”

In Hobart, 15-year-old Henry from Sacred Heart College said he liked the music and that some of what Fr Rob shared was ‘eye-opening’; while in Devonport, 13-year-old St Brendan Shaw College student Tiahna says she is hoping to join a youth group, just as Fr Rob did as a teenager.