EDITORIAL - Ho Lung: before the poor see God

It is perhaps symbolic that Richard Ho Lung's retirement from the helm of Missionaries for the Poor has come to light at Easter, this most holy period on the Christian calendar, marking the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as a symbol of hope of salvation for all of God's children.

For more than three decades, that has been Father Richard Ho Lung's mission - trafficking in hope. But to its execution, he brought a twist. He has focused on the poorest of the poor. But Father Ho Lung was clear that while they may expect to see God, this did not vindicate their most wretched existence on earth.

Many of the poorest people in Jamaica, Haiti, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, and even the United States will be glad for Richard Ho Lung's awakening and, ultimately, his decision to work with, and on, their behalf. That, in the process, this Jamaican of Chinese descent created a new religious order, with multinational reach and ratified by the Vatican, and for which he may have global recognition, is to Father Ho Lung merely collateral.

Richard Ho Lung deliberately eschewed what might have been a relatively easy intellectual and contemplative life. In 1959, after his own Jesuit high-school education at St George's College in Kingston, he joined the prestigious order and became a priest in 1971. Along the way he earned a doctorate in the humanities and master's degrees in theology, philosophy and English literature from Boston College and Syracuse universities in the United States. He later taught at the former, as well as at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, and served as a priest at the Aquinas Centre at Papine, St Andrew.

SOMETHING MISSING

But observing the poverty around him, Richard Ho Lung felt that there was something missing in his life, or as he put it, he somehow felt like a hypocrite. "I was preaching the Word of God, but not really living it."

That was the catalyst for resigning from the Jesuits and forming, in 1981, what was first called the Brothers of the Poor to work in Kingston's most deprived communities, caring and providing shelter and a sense of family for the most vulnerable people. By 1998, what was now Missionaries of the Poor, having been approved 16 years earlier by the then Archbishop of Kingston Samuel Carter, was formally recognised by the Vatican as a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, the first such male organisation from the Caribbean to be so sanctioned.

From the initial five people who were part of the outreach, Missionaries of the Poor now has around 550 brothers and priests in its ranks and can also count on hundreds of volunteers and other supporters in its efforts across the world.

It is not beyond the realm of reasonable imagination that in times to come, the name Ho Lung will be called alongside others such as Loyola, Assisi or Augustine, although Richard Ho Lung would cringe at any thought that this was his motivation and would perhaps happily trade that prospect for the benefit of the poor.

At 75, Father Ho Lung has passed the reins of superior general to the much younger Augusto Silot, but he will remain the moral conscience of the mission. And he is likely to still be singing and dancing and producing musicals, and, therefore, warn that it is far too early to confine him to history.

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