He made you now for your salvation, for your conviction of other people and to God Himself. You will now spend all your days, all your time, whatever you do to honour Him. It is in loving the Lord that you understand that He is the one who gave you life.

What you are as you are now, He wanted and He wants you to continue to be. Every breath that you take comes from the Lord. You cannot take a breath without the Lord. You cannot move without the Lord. You cannot see without the Lord.

When you were knitted in your mother’s womb, it was the Lord who placed you there (Psalm 39). The Lord knew you before all times. He knew exactly what He wanted you to be and to do with your life. And you have a role to play in life that no one else can play. Only you.

You have a distinct vocation to live as an individual Christian and to live in a community with other Christians and to work with and for the poor. The Lord brought you into life because He wanted you to know that He loves you and He made you to know that He loves you and that you are called to love Him. You yourself were made into being to love God and to be loved by Him. You should experience above all things the love of God.

How do I know? Because He made you and I and we are both held in the hands of God, conceived in the mind of God every moment. We existed in Him, for Him, and by Him and made in His image and likeness even before time began. And He is our Father; Jesus is our brother; and we are led by the Holy Spirit. And we give to our Lord, our lives.

I ask myself the question, and ask you the question: Do you really want to give your life over to Christ? Do you really love Jesus as your brother? Do you love your creator as your Father? Do you seek to be holy? And thus, to follow the Holy Spirit? At your age now, as you stand before God, with the talent that you have been given, what have you achieved so far in your life? In your profession, with the gifts that you have, with your talents, what have you achieved in building the Kingdom of God?

God loves you, He loves us here on Earth, and one day in His heavenly kingdom, He wants us to love each other and to be with Him forever and ever. During this period of Lent, let us call upon the words of Isaiah how we can bend our will to love and please the Lord more than ever.

Isaiah 58:6-12

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter —

when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

and your healing will quickly appear;

then your righteousness [a] will go before you,

and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;

you will cry for help, and He will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The LORD will guide you always;

He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring whose waters never fail.

12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Father Richard Ho Lung is founder of Missionaries of the Poor, 87 Hanover Street, PO Box 8525, Kingston CSO, Jamaica.

Tel: (876) 550-8987. Email: mopfounder81@gmail.com

Web: www.missionariesofthepoor.org