Fr Roy was ordained on the 4th of August 1960 and therefore he celebrated his golden Jubilee this year. He presided at a beautiful Mass in the Morning for which the two Ashaiman communities participated together with the Youth Animators. The Missionaries of Charity also attended and presented him with a beautiful chasuble. In the evening a special supper was shared in the community. Here Fr Roy shares with a spiritual thought about a value in religious life that he cherishes so much.
"May I suggest three norms, in three words, for our practice of poverty in the contemporary world? To be relevant, and therefore sacramental in the lives of all who see us, our poverty must be sincere. We must be in fact, and not only by profession, really poor.
"May I suggest three norms, in three words, for our practice of poverty in the contemporary world? To be relevant, and therefore sacramental in the lives of all who see us, our poverty must be sincere. We must be in fact, and not only by profession, really poor.God knows if we are poor only in name. Our poverty must be laborious by which we resemble workers in the world who have to labour often in distasteful jobs under trying conditions.
Finally our poverty must be generous by which we freely devote ourselves and all we have for the service of the neighbour. Sincerity, labour and generosity may not be easy to spell out in rulebooks or constitutions, but they are not hard to determine, each one for himself, once we set our minds to it. Our poverty is sincere if we actually lack certain things we should like to have; it is laborious if we become tired in the work we perform; and it is generous if we cheerfully share.“
American Religious Life in Historical Perspective, Chapter 8 Poverty, Chastity and Prayer (Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J., Bellarmine School of Theology, Chicago, Ill.)
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