Aside from the hundreds of homeless and destitute, we fed 5,000 meals in our programme for our neighbours last Christmas. I do not know how the brothers managed to gather so much food and so many people together at Christmastime and the new year’s season.

At Jesus Redeemer monastery on Christmas Eve, the brothers held a feeding programme for our ghetto neighbourhood. Elderly people gathered. They sang, the brothers played instruments, the people told happy stories about Jesus and festivities they had in the past.

When I entered the gate, beggars and brothers welcomed me. A man from the crowd emerged from the gathering. He shuffled forward and cried out, “Father Ho Lung! Father Ho Lung! Come here I beg you.” I approached him. He was blind, but his eyes were open. He grabbed me by the hand. He pulled me towards himself. His face was full of pus, half of his face was white and was swollen with yellow sores.

He rubbed his face against my face. I yielded to his embrace and thought of Jesus. What would Jesus do? I closed my eyes, prayed for the man and blessed him. After a while, I relaxed and he let me go.

“Thank you! Thank you, father for welcoming me,” he said. He picked up his plate of food, he ate the curry goat and rice and peas. I looked at his face and thought, “Surely this man has leprosy”.

The man said, “This is my Christmas dinner, the brothers have taken care of me. See this towel? The brothers gave me this for my Christmas present. I also took a shower in their bathroom. The water was nice, I couldn’t see, they dried me up, I feel good and new.”

He smiled and said, “Thank God for the brothers. Thank you.”

That thank you was the best Christmas present I had. Later on the brothers told me that someone had thrown acid on the face of this old man who they think has the name Percival. He was sleeping on the street, on the lower part of downtown Kingston. All he had was a paper bag of dirty old rags that were not washed. Some boys were quarrelling and fighting over some money. One of them tripped over the leg of Percival as he laid down in the dark of midnight on the sidewalk with dogs all around.

The acid burnt half of his face. He yelled out. The young boys ran away. His cries for help received no response outside the police station. For days Percival wept and stumbled in the streets with no one to help him. The brothers stopped and talked with him, he begged them for somewhere to stay but we had no more space at our eight homes for the homeless.

This man is the greatest gift or Epiphany of Christ for me and the brothers during this Christmas season, but it is not the story of Christ, the newborn child, but the story of the crucified Christ. This poor man with what seems to be a leprose face brought joy to all in our Missionaries of the Poor community with his thankfulness and gratefulness.

We thank you also for your great kindness in helping us provide for the feeding of the 5,000.

This man, whom the Missionaries of the Poor brothers believe is named Percival, is an acid burn victim. He lives on the streets in downtown Kingston.