We are vowed men. That is our state of being. We dress, we speak, and we work as vowed men. That is who we are. We do not want to be anything else. Whatever we do, whatever we say, wherever we go, everything is to be drawn out of He who is holy.

In our vow of poverty we receive everything from the Father, and we dispense everything as gifts from the Father. In our vow of chastity, our love belongs to Christ alone. In our vow of obedience, we delight only in the will of the Father and the service of others. In our vow of free service, we make real the virtue of Christian charity, especially to the least of these (Matthew 25:40).

Our state of being as vowed men of God is relational: We are men of God in relationship to Christ; we are men of God in relationship to our community; we are men of God in relationship to the poor; we are men of God in relationship to the world.

Religious life is a state of being in which God rules over our lives. When we take vows we are saying that we want to be bound to God and to be in union with God: I am a man of God, and I want the substance of my being to be a man who is holy unto God. We seek perfectae caritatis, to be perfect unto God — not perfect for ourselves, but perfect for God.

From our inner self we give witness and service

The space that is holy is the inner self. The inner self — our mental structure, our internal frame of reference, the way we think and speak — must be holy. The desires we feel should be desires for the holy, totally consecrated unto the Lord. Our witness is clear: We love God alone with pure and total love. We have one single goal and purpose in life — to be witnesses and servants of God.

To gaze on the face of God and to transform others

As we live this way we need to project the image of Christ. Even if we find ourselves very tired or the work with the poor repetitious, tedious, or difficult, we must remember that we are living this way for Christ; we are not doing it for ourselves. We live as holy men who are doing holy work. With Missionaries of the Poor, people begin to see the kingdom of God among the poor. That is our witness. That is the function of our religious life.

The intimacy that we have with Christ must be evident to others; they must see that we love Christ passionately. We should be so deeply attached to Christ that in everything we do our faces become the face of God because we have gazed on the face of God; love of God transforms our faces. It should be transparent to others that our love of God is extraordinary. The very ground of our being is God and the spiritual riches of the kingdom of God.

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