75th ANNIVERSARY OF
THE ARRIVAL OF THE BROTHERS OF ST GABRIEL IN SINGAPORE (1935 – 2011)
Singapore Sunday 18
September 2011
Your Grace, Most Reverend Archbishop Nicholas Chia,
Dear Brother Provincial,
Mr Lim Boon Heng,
Rev. Fathers, Rev; Sisters and Rev. Brothers,
Dear Members of the Staff, Parents, Well-wishers, Benefactors,
Friends of the Montfort Brothers of St Gabriel,
It is a privilege and an honour for me to be present here to celebrate
the 75th Anniversary of the arrival of the Montfort Brothers of St.
Gabriel in Singapore.
I convey to you the greetings and the appreciation of our Central
Administration: Bro. René Delorme, our Superior General, who is in Canada but
united to us in mind and heart and the Members of his Council.
I appreciate, and thank you for the initiative of celebrating the 75th
Anniversary of the arrival of the Brothers in Singapore.
At the request of Mgr Adrien Devals, Bishop of Malacca-Singapore, three Brothers, one French (Bro. Gerard Majella)
coming from Thailand and two young Canadian, 20 years old, (Bros Adolphus and
Jean de Brebeuf), arrived in Singapore in November and December 1936. In January 1937,
they took charge of Holy Innocent’s English School, situated next to the
Nativity parish church.
Soon after, in August 1937 and February 1938, two French Brothers (Robert
d’Uzes and Galmier) arrived from Abyssinia (the present Ethiopia). They had to
close the mission over there because of the war and instead of going back to
their mother land they accepted to start a vocational school in Bukit Timah,
without even knowing the local languages. The new vocational centre started
under the sign of the cross.
As soon as August 15,1938, the Brothers started a formation house, a
novitiate, next to the vocational school, for candidates coming from India and
Thailand.
Such were the beginnings of the new mission that was called to develop
in Singapore itself and to spread in Malaysia soon after.
Dear Friends, my dear Brothers, it is good to be reminded of our past
and to celebrate and commemorate the
pioneers, the corner stones of our history in this part of the world but it is
not enough. Celebrating the past is useless if it is not an opportunity to
assess and evaluate our present and to find new ways for the future. When we
decide to celebrate our past, we commit ourselves to be faithful to the values
and strengths of our predecessors here and now, and to find new ways for the
future. Fidelity and creativity are the two guidelines we are given to improve
our present commitments. Fidelity to the past and to a tradition is not enough
because this would lead us to a stand still. Instead, fidelity and creativity
must go hand in hand to be faithful to the pioneers and the Montfortian
Education Charter.
As far as the present is concerned we have to ask ourselves a few
questions as individuals and as an institution:
1)
Are we in the right
track when dealing with the management of our institutions? Are we giving more
importance to the structures than to the importance of the whole person?
2)
In our mission of
education where do we put our priorities? On results or on formation?
3)
Are we faithful to
the legacy of our predecessors, to the value system that made them give their
lives, happily, even in the trials they had to face?
4)
We are getting the support
of more and more laity in our staff, as benefactors and well-wishers. Is it
just for their support, for what they give us? Or do we try to find together a genuine
motivation to dedicate ourselves to the education of the youth and especially
the less privileged?
5)
Do we work as
individuals or as a team?
When we revive the story of the pioneers and their successors it is easy
to find out the qualities and values that guided their lives. They were:
·
Solidarity between different
sectors of the Institute: the Brothers came from Thailand, France, Canada,
Spain, India and later included local brothers.
·
Availability of the Brothers
themselves, ready to go where God beckons; Bro. Galmier had to leave Abyssinia
because of the war. He left Singapore after the Second World War because the workshops
in Bukit Timah were ruined and the machines had been stolen. When he arrived in
France he was asked to start and manage a new school for deaf and dumb. What he
did, excellently, for years!
·
Vision. Bro. Vincent, while a prisoner
in a concentration camp, did not spend his time complaining about the present
situation that was very harsh indeed! He just made friends among the prisoners
and planned to set up a Boys’ Town in Singapore. Soon after he was freed from
the camp, Brother Vincent reopened St Joseph’s Vocational School. He got a new
land to build the Boys’ Town, he dreamed of, with the help of a Protestant
Australian, Mr W.T McDermott. As a team, the Brothers and the boys leveled the
ground, made the bricks, the woodwork and ironwork and did much more with their
own hands. Bro. Vincent’s friends gave the machines and the tools. At the
entrance, the passers-by could read the notice: “Watch Boys’ Town Grow here”. Many were amazed and contributed a
large amount of money to this institution.
There are plenty of other qualities and values that can be highlighted
in the lives of our predecessors: Bro Vincent, Evariste, who never went back to
his mother land, Bros. Elzear-Marie, Fernand-Joseph, Henry-Joseph, Georges Etienne,
Amance and many others. But one value sums up all of them that is Passion for God and Passion for Humanity.
Concern for the less privileged sections of society has always been a priority
of the Brothers everywhere they started a new mission. This has become a
reality here in Singapore. Passion for God and his creatures is the final
explanation of such an amount of efforts and dedication and the trust of the
Brothers in Providence.
This explains as well the fast growth of the mission in Singapore
itself: the building of new academic schools: St Gabriel’s School, Assumption
English School and the beginning of the mission in Malaysia in 1955: St
Joseph’s School in Johore Bahru, St Andrew School at Muar, two primary schools
in Batu Pahat and Segamat and a new Boys’ Town in Batu Tiga. We have among us a
few witnesses and actors of this success story between the years 1946 – 1968 in
the persons of Bros. James, Roger, Jean Denis, Emmanuel, Philip Heng, Mark Tee.
They can give us plenty of details that made the history of the mission of the
Brothers of St Gabriel in Singapore and Malaysia. On behalf of the Superior
General and his Council I would like to congratulate and thank them for their selfless
dedication at the service of the mission of the Institute. The whole congregation
is grateful to you, dear Brothers. May the Good Lord shower upon you his peace
and his joy.
A new generation has taken the lead. They have to go on in fidelity to
the past, our tradition, and the example of our predecessors in the mission: having the Gospel as a rule of life in the
footsteps of St Louis Marie de Montfort, our Founder. We are fully aware that
such a mission is quite demanding.
On behalf of the Superior General and his Council I congratulate and
thank you, dear Brothers, for your dedication. May the Lord bless you and the
youth you are in charge of.
I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate all the laity who are
working with us in the various fields of our educational mission. Their
collaboration is commendable and necessary. Heartfelt thanks to them all.
Special thanks to all our benefactors and well-wishers. For the last 75
years till today, they have supported our Institutions and without their help
it would have been impossible to fulfil Montfort’s vision of taking care of the
neediest. Nowhere else in our Congregation have the Brothers have been able to
rely on such a number of benefactors. Thanks to their contributions and the
help of the Government, we have been able to update and upgrade our institutions,
the buildings as well as the quality of the formation we give to our students.
We are really grateful to you, my dear friends. May God bless you all!
As we celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the arrival of the
Brothers in this country, 75 years of pain, hard work and success, we have
recalled the past, we have tried to evaluate the present, we must not forget to
find new ways for the future, in fidelity to the past that is: vision,
availability, passion for God and humanity.
But let us not forget creativity.
6)
Let us work together,
religious and laity, as a team. Thus we shall be able to create a synergy that
will give us more strength than the addition of all the individual energies put
together
.
.
7)
Let us develop the
collaboration with the laity. This has been the strength of the mission, here.
We can go further by giving more responsibilities to the laity and making them
part of the decision making. As our number and strength are decreasing, we have
to share the responsibilities but we must remain the leaders and the guardians
of the Spirit of the Brothers of St Gabriel. Otherwise there is a danger to
lose our identity as educators. That means that we have to support, in anyway,
the laity whom we entrust with responsibilities. Priority has to be given to the
transmission of our Montfortian legacy.
8)
Let us not forget
that we have to prepare our students to be citizens of a globalised world. They
must be imbued with the values that will make them able to find their ways in a
society without clear landmarks. They have to be professionally competent, open
and dedicated to others in the milieu where they will have to live.
Dear Brothers, dear Friends, in a fast changing world, we, as educators,
have to be flexible and proactive. We have to adapt ourselves, we have to adapt
our formation to the need of the time, we have to adapt our pedagogy to the new
mentality of our students.
Once again I thank you for your selfless efforts to fulfil the mission
you have been entrusted with. The members of the Central Administration appreciate
what you are doing especially for the less privileged of society.
Special thanks to all those who have prepared this beautiful celebration
under the guidance of the Provincial Superior Bro. Dominic Yeo Koh.
Allow me one last thanks and congratulation for the beautiful Eucharist
Celebration we have had in the Nativity parish church and the meaningful homily
of your Grace, Archbishop Nicholas Chia. In a few words you went to the point,
celebrating the past and enlightening the future of our mission here in
Singapore. Heartfelt thanks to you.
Thank you and God Bless.
Singapore, September 18, 2011
Bro. Georges Le Vern
Assistant General
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