Richard Ho Lung
NOTHING ELSE matters. Our Christian faith is the reason why I would not leave this island. It is why I work with the poorest of peoples in Jamaica. It is why I live in the ghetto. It is why I am a Catholic priest. It is why I gather young men together to pour out their lives in service of the Lord and the most forgotten of peoples. It is why I don't mind working all day long for no pay. My travels all over the world and our missions all over the world are for Christ. The brothers and our priests give up TV, radio, movies, and the pleasures of the world to concentrate on Christ. The music I write is meant to give witness to His life, the concerts and drama all centre on Christ. While at prayer, and even in my sleep, I try to remove the distractions so as to centre on the one true living God.
MARTYRDOM
We live in the ghetto because we believe it is where Jesus would want us to be. Wherever there is darkness, there must be the light of Christ. We hear gunshots at night, the diabolic music conjures up all kinds of evil spirits, the DJs curse and utter the most degrading of words about people. We wipe faeces, remove urine-sodden bed linens, we risk AIDS with our AIDS people, we feed them, clothe them, administer medicines, and pray with them and bury them. We want nothing but the Lord, and in our self-sacrificing way of life, we die to ourselves daily in service of Christ. Then Christ lives in us, and we live in Him, and we experience the greatest joy in the depths of our souls. Already the martyrdom has begun. Already we experience death day by day. "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Frankly, we know that any day we could die in service of the Lord. At times the brothers have been threatened. A few times the brothers have had gunshots go through their clothing while walking in the ghettoes. At night time a bullet cut through the leg of a brother while in bed. In the past I have been confronted with weapons, but I was not afraid. Even threats have been made to kill the brothers and myself, but we were unafraid. God is with us. "If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" (Romans 14:8).
We want to spread this way of living, this spirit of self-sacrifice throughout Jamaica and the entire world. This way our world will be a happy place. In a time when our Christian faith is threatened everywhere, I believe martyrdom is going to be required of future Christians. Even now we begin that "dry martyrdom" of daily dying to ourselves.
Catholic doctors and nurses will lose their jobs, in time to come, if they do not consent to abortions and euthanasia. Already the teaching of Christian doctrine is forbidden in some schools, religious dress with any manifestation of our faith such as a cross or a Mary medal are outlawed in some countries such as France and Holland. Heavy drugs are being legalized in some liberal European countries, same-sex marriages are being pushed and therefore those who will not marry same-sex couples would be sued.
ENEMIES OF THE STATE
Those of us who stand by the ways of Christ will be enemies of the state that promulgates laws contrary to the Christian faith. The time is coming. We must not be afraid. The new springtime of faith which has been promised to us is on the horizon. But new life requires death: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).
Something new is about to happen: bloodshed, which will water this Church of ours, and then the risen body of Christ in which we will resurrect will be ours. We look forward to that new day and are not afraid of the price to be paid. After all death is a superficial matter when compared to the immediate entrance into a new life of everlasting happiness with the saints, the angels and the Lord Jesus in whom we find our joy.
Father Ho Lung is founder and leader of the Missionaries of the Poor.
