賴斐爾修士
Brother Raphael Egan, F.S.C. R.I.P.
Brother Raphael Egan joined the Brothers in Castletown, Ireland.
He was posted to Hong Kong in 1947 and took up a teaching post in La Salle College and his past pupils still speak of his kindly manner and of the new impetus he gave to their formerly boring hours in the classroom.
After two years he was appointed Director and Principle of St. Joseph's College which was still recovering from the ravages of war. He set about re-furnishing and reorganising, recruiting better teachers and encouraging the pupils to make up for the four years of schooling they has missed as a result of the Japanese Occupation. When he left after nine years, St. Joseph had regained its former reputation of being one of the leading schools in Hong Kong.
After a lapse of some thirteen years, Brother Raphael was later transferred back to Hong Kong and took charge of La Salle College, Kowloon. He discovered that the school was over-crowded and some of the classrooms were not up to the standard he would like. He soon set his mind on a new College. We now see the result of his planning in the new College on La Salle Road, acclaimed by many to be the finest school building in Asia. Even some Brothers on holiday from famous colleges in America were heard to say "Gee, Brother, we have nothing like this in the U.S."
One of his great assets was his candour and the hold he had over people who got to know him; they were willing to spend time, energy and where possible, money to help him to adchieve his plans. He never lost a friend and even during the painful days towards to end of this life he was constantly writing letters to rich and poor alike in Europe, Asia and America. He was always very concerned about the pupils in his school and very generous in a quiet way to those in financial need. On one occasion a little boy fell on a broken bottle near the school and received a deep gash. He was brought into the Office bleeding profusely. Brother Raphael immediately phoned an ambulance and accompanied the boy to Queen Mary Hospital. The Doctor decided that a blood transfusion was advisable. A Nursing Sister come to Brother Raphael and said there was a severe shortage of blood and if no donor came forward they would have to charge a fee. Brother immediately stretched out his arm, pulled up his sleeve saying: "plenty of it here Sister."
There is no doubt but he will he remembered by many and his passing will be deeply mourned. He was always a very deeply religious person, but it came so natural to him that it could pass unnoticed to casual observers. He had a strong devotion to the Mass and to our Blessed Lady. During his final painful months he never complained and it would seem that during much of his time alone was given to prayer. He died in Ireland on 23 July 1990.
17 August 1990
Dear All,
I got this article on Brother Raphael from Google. I believe it's an obituary or eulogy. Sorry I can't upload his photo for some unknown IT technical reasons. It's very touching. It's a pity that there is no mention of his time in Sandakan - I think that's during the 13 years' lapse mentioned in the article.
I visited him a couple of times here in Hong Kong. He also attended my wedding dinner party (Hope to post the photo taken then). He confided to me in one of my visits that he valued the true friendship of Malaysians, hinting that those so-called friends in HK are very much benefits-orientated.
My only regret is: I didn't know he was leaving HK for Ireland for good and therefore was not able to bid the last farewell to him.
What are your memorable recollections of our beloved Brother? Come on everyone just say something even short and concise. Don't just let the few of us do the "talking"!
Regards,
Name: Hubert
2 comments:
I remember writing to him soon after he was posted to La Salle College, Kowloon. In my letter, I apologised for scoring a lousy score for my English in the Senior Cambridge exams. He replied, "a couple of marks more is not important". I think he also said something about "looking forward to the future is more important". He never liked to call me by my Christian name. He always called me 'CHAI'. No doubt all of us will recall that he was very fond of carrying a giant dictionary into our class so that he could turn to its big pages to check out the meaning of difficult words that he might hear from some of us! The guy has a PhD and yet he still sometimes found it hard to understand our advanced English!
James
Cay you all remember that our class Form 2A got so naughty (even making Mrs. Amoeba cry) that Bro. Raphael decided to teach us - I believe that's the reason why he taught us because he would not normaly teach the lower forms.
One incident I remember vividly (as if it happended only yesterday!) is when he for some strange reasons went to the bush to pick some leaves and we began to shout "baa" like goats because he always teased us by callling us goats. Needless to say, we had to face the music and when he came to our class, nobody dared to stand up to admit the guilt and so he gave us an ultimatum to hand him the list of the offenders. Well of course (I'm sure he expected that too) we came up with a list of the most brilliant guys or his 'favourite' students like Clement (can't remember if I was included; people like Tommy Siew definitely excluded!). Do you think he was naive enough to accept the list? Of course not! I can't remember how the matter got resolved. Can anyone recall?
Regards,
Hubert
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