Richard Ho Lung, Contributor
GOD SAYS in Isaiah 1:17, "Learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow;" and in Matthew 25 Jesus says whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do it unto me."
Throughout the Scriptures, we see that God has a special love and concern for the poor. When Jesus, God-Incarnate, lived on earth, He spent His time and energy with the poor. He healed the sick, cleansed lepers, gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk, and raised the dead. He even chose as His disciples, those who were poor, simple fishermen, tax collectors - who were considered as sinners. Jesus Himself lived as a poor man: born in a stable, He died naked on the cross as a beggar without anything.
The Church, since apostolic times, has always maintained the preferential option for the poor. Christ said, "It is easier for the camel to enter into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God." (Mt. 19:24)
He calls us not only to care for the poor, but to also live poor and simple lives.
The call to a preferential option for the poor is not a communist principle that we are to inculcate, but rather it is a fulfilling of God's desire to care for the poor.
Election time is around the corner, but how much has been done for the poor so far? Years have gone by and the poor are simply neglected and have been left to their own struggles. What is the result of this? Children running around the streets rather than going to school because there is no financial support for them to do so; youngsters getting involved with drugs, guns and immorality because 'Idleness is the devil's workshop.' Unemployment leads the poor to greater evils.
Providing more opportunitie s including education for the children in the ghettoes, providing jobs for the unemployed, giving a moral education (according to the norms of God) will make our beloved nation a better place. The first priority is to be given to the poor.
Love of the poor is incompatible with immoderate love of riches or of their selfish use." One of the great saints, St. John Chrysostom once said, "Not to enable the poor to share our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs." The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all. What is due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of Charity.
On a daily basis we care for 450 to 500 poor. Our first aim is to give them their rightful dignity, viz, that they are human persons and are God's beloved children. When the Brothers come back home after a long days' work, there is a sense of satisfaction, fulfilment and joy because they know that they have cared for God's forgotten children who are rejected by the society.
Our AIDS patients, in particular, are the ones who suffer the greatest scorn even from their own family members and close friends. But though they come to us in sorrow and despair, they die in peace and joy because the Brothers make them feel part of their family, bring them the good news of Jesus, and the hope of Eternal Life.
The poor are indeed God's precious treasure, and ours as well. Let us make every effort to lift them up from their miseries, share in their sufferings and ultimately restore to them their identity as human beings and as God's children. Let us do all this with love - a love that comes from above - for at the evening of life we will be judged according to the measure of our love, especially for the poor. It is by what they have done for the poor that Jesus will recognise His chosen ones.
Fr. Richard Ho Lung is Founder and Superior-General of The Missionaries of the Poor.
