18 LUMEN | JOSEPHIANS
A Man of
Faith and
Fortitude
By Gregory Tan and Cui Ruoxuan
Diagnosed with leukaemia in 2013 , Reverend Father Luke Fong remains candid in his reflections of his struggles on his blog .
His musings such as a recent one on 17th November 2014 encourages readers to embrace brokenness and illness so healing can take place as he , himself undergoes that painful process .
Fr Luke Fong was ordained in June 2001 . From then till now , he has endured hardships – his most significant – battle with leukaemia which he has now conquered and is still learning to recover from every day . Throughout the trying period , his strength never wavered and his faith never shook . Lumen was fortunate enough to ask Fr Fong some questions about his time in SJI as well as his journey as a priest .
Father refers to his time in SJI from 1978 to 1981 endearingly , recalling the spirituality of the school ’ s culture . “ The Catholic spirit was very present , and I am sure that it provided me with the incipient foundations of my vocation . Strangely , what I do recall with great joy is not what happened in the school per se , but what happened before the school day started . I would go for the morning Eucharist across the road in the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd before classes , and the fact that only a few of us did this with any degree of regularity made it even more strange and special at the same time .”
When asked what he thought was meant by the term “ Josephian spirit ”, Fr Fong had only words of praise . “ If you are asking what makes a Josephian a Josephian , you would be asking me to write a whole litany of adjectives and adverbs that I would readily associate ( hopefully positively ) with a Josephian . Words that come to mind are ‘ courageous ’, ‘ hardworking ’, ‘ integrous ’, ‘ disciplined ’ and ‘ respectful ’, to name a few .”
Fr Luke Fong was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2012 , if one thing was always clear to parishioners and those around him at the time , it was that he never lost faith in God or looked defeated . During the interview , he gave us an insight into where his faith originated and how he felt about that period of his life .
“ Where did this faith begin ? At my baptism of course . But that was the planting of a seed that