Diary of a Ghetto Priest | Love is the gospel in action

Charity is a true revelation of the gospel of the Lord. All of us know that Jesus gave Himself to the poorest of people and asked for nothing in response.

There is laughter and peace in the hearts of those who give freely and joyfully. It is the best and most evident proof that God is alive in our materialistic and confused secular world in which reasoned arguments and palpable objects are the only reality.

We are living in a world starving from its wealth as much as from its poverty. There is the need for the living word of God or living Christ to be placed before us.

Charity is an irrefutable argument, a demonstration, a vision, an experience of God in action through his people.

The days I walk through Faith Centre, Jacob's Well, Lord's Place, Bethlehem, and Good Shepherd, and I see the brothers at work, I am full of Joy. They do the work of Jesus - feeding, clothing, cleaning, cooking, praying with happy hearts. They live a privileged life of pure and simple men appointed to be the living proof of God's love and existence. Visitors come and shake their heads in disbelief. For believers and agnostics, there is silence. They have seen a mirror of God's beauty.

Be beautiful

When we give and give without expectation of an earthly reward; it invites, encourages, and stimulates others to be beautiful also in a different way than the Earth knows. Ideals really attract people when they are lived. Beauty generates beauty in the beholder, we want to replicate the handsomeness or beauty we have seen. Christian charity must be lived, embodied, made incarnate in us. Charity is self-propagating with the freshness and vitality of God himself.

Charity does reveal God. It is startling and delightful. It is something extra than what justice reveals. It is not what we expect.

These brothers come from a long distance to serve Jamaicans, not their own families or countrymen. These brothers get no pay, no salary, they just serve in the name of Christ in order to serve the master Himself. These brothers give themselves over in a life of celibacy, poverty, and obedience - just for the life of the gospel, to authenticate the beautiful life of Jesus, who is pure love.

He loves; He is rejected; He keeps on loving; He never stops; He dies on the cross to forgive our sins and becomes the sacrifice that opens the heavenly door welcoming us to live with Him forever.