I, Brother Fabian Mačej, was born in Windberg in the U.S. Virgin Islands. When I was five years old, my family moved to Slovakia, to a town named Kobyly.

When I was 12, I was sent to the Divine Word apostolic school in Štiavnik. When I graduated from this middle school, I was sent to the house of the Divine Word Missionaries in Mödling, near Vienna. In 1944, I voluntarily left the Order to enroll in the Slovakian army which was fighting on the Eastern front.

At the end of the war, I joined the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God. In those days, the novitiate was located in Prague and it was only after the one in Skalica was re-opened that, on May 29, 1949, I took my temporary vows. After that I received a degree from the Bratislava nursing school and then, finally, on June 1, 1952, I made my solemn profession.

In 1954, together with another Brother I was arrested by the state police and interned in a forced labor camp in Nitra. Starting in 1957, I was allowed to work as a male nurse in various parts of the country. But it was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, that things really changed. At that time, I was named Vice-provincial of the Vice-province of Slovakia. Despite the enormous moral and economic damages suffered by the Order in the postwar period, I was able to start rebuilding our Hospitaller Order, thankfully receiving the help and support of many people. Before long, we found ourselves with many young people flocking to our Bratislava community and eager to join the Order. Even though I was much older than they were, I did my best to understand them and to prepare them for the religious life.