Thursday, October 27, 2005. At approximately 7:30 pm, Brother Marco Laspuna offers to the Missionaries of the Poor choir a song he had written, apparently for another student priest – Brother Murray – who was scheduled to leave two days later for a posting in Africa.

The song, titled We Are One With God, was accepted, and Brother Marco, a 31-year-old Filipino who loved to play his guitar and write songs, led the singing.

Listen to our song.

that expresses our love for you.

Deep in our heart you’re part of us

You will leave this home

going to your future home

Thank you for the love

that you’ve shared everyday

Chorus 1We will miss you awhile

You’re no longer at our side

Our memory will hold us just like today.

Chorus 2Don’t say goodbye

for in God we abide

and don’t be sad

we’ll keep you in our prayer

BridgeOur God will bind us forever

Our community, one with the blessed mother

abide in God’s love

That we may be one in love.

Four hours later, Brother Marco lay dead in hospital. A bullet had pierced his head. Police believe it was the same bullet that killed his colleague, 22-year-old Brother Suresh Barwa, a native of India.

Mystery still surrounds how and why both priests were shot as they and three other missionaries washed dishes after supper at Missionaries of the Poor’s Corpus Christi complex at 3 North Street, downtown Kingston.

Missionaries of the Poor founder/leader Father Richard HoLung is clear that Brother Marco could not have known that he would have died that night. But HoLung can’t ignore the seeming prescient nature of the song.

“He obviously didn’t know what would have happened to him,” HoLung told the Observer Saturday, “but the lyrics turned out to be prophetic.

“I had heard the song during the mass Thursday evening, and I found it so striking, but after the shooting I was so distracted that I forgot about it,” HoLung said.

It was not until Saturday afternoon after one of the brothers brought the lyrics to him that HoLung really absorbed the lyrics.

“This was the first one of his songs that he made public,” HoLung said of the slain missionary.

Although the members of the religious order are grieving, they do not, HoLung said, intend to stop serving the more than 500 poor and helpless Jamaicans at their five centres in downtown Kingston.

“How we look at it is that Christ was young and His father willed it that He die for us,” said HoLung. “We look at the brothers’ lives as reenactment of the blood of Christ spilled for us.”

He said that after the tragedy Brother Murray had expressed a desire to delay his travel to Africa in order to help comfort the other missionaries. “But I told him ‘no, the people there need your help’,” HoLung said.

In addition to its Jamaican operation, Missionaries of the Poor runs centres in Uganda, The Philippines, Haiti and India where they care for lepers, AIDS victims, homeless, poor and handicapped people.

HoLung said that the killing of the two missionaries had left many people downtown flustered. “People in the streets are upset and angry and blaming all kinds of people,” HoLung told the Observer. “We went to Coronation Market as usual Friday and Saturday and vendors in particular are deeply hurt. They said they felt as if they have lost their own sons. I told them not to be angry.”

He said that the only thing the missionaries wanted was for their slain colleagues’ blood “to be like the blood of Jesus to cleanse the island and to take away the sins of our country”.

“I just want to see change in Jamaica,” said HoLung.