22 LUMEN | INTERVIEWS
Remembering Brother Gregory
Thomas Lim
By Bro Nicholas Seet , FSC
I was fortunate to have been a student of Br Gregory Lim who taught me music in Secondary One in St Joseph ’ s Institution which was then at Bras Basah Road . He was also the Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary in the school when I was in lower secondary . A faint memory of him was when he took us to visit the Canossian convent at Jalan Merbok , Bukit Batok way back in 1971 . I remember as a student that it was the first time I saw a Brother without his religious habit and thought , they are just as human as we are ! This may seem humorous now but at that time , but it did make an impact on me and would have contributed somewhat to my being a Brother today .
Bro Gregory , 96 years old , always wished to live to 100 years but the Lord wanted his faithful servant sooner than he expected . He lived a simple life , ministering to the young in Singapore , Malaysia , Hong Kong , Japan and Papua New Guinea among other countries . While he shared with us the challenges he faced in terms of his religious life , he was certain that he would be faithful to the end .
With his left arm characteristically slung to his left waist , he taught many generations of students , many of whom have had fond memories of him . I remember the visits of his former students from Hong Kong in our community .
He had a sense of humour and at times , while relating his stories , he was unable to continue clearly as he would not be able to stifle his laughter midway . One had to ask him to clarify the humour so as to get the story clearly from him . In his later years , knowing that he had shrunk in size , he told me with a chuckle that he had to stop wearing our religious habit , as it had become too long for him . So when he attended the memorial service for the late Bro Dominic Chong , he still looked impressive in the Brother ’ s white collared black shirt instead of the usual long religious habit .