The missionary spirituality of the LRMS flows from power and influence of the Holy Spirit. The words of San Lorenzo Ruiz "mille animas" which means "a thousand lives" entail a mission of bridging the Christian faith and dialoguing with culture. "A thousand lives" means to be at the service of God for humanity. It suggests a life of total self-giving, a life of dialogue with people by offering everything he has, and a life of witnessing that bridges people to God.

The Spirit realized and revealed its form and action through the vision of its founder, Jaime Cardinal Sin who started this project in 1997. The image of a "bridge" was important at the outset of both seminary formation and priestly mission of the LRMS to set the nature and direction of the Society. Besides, a creative and constructive dialogue is seen necessary by its members to foster relationships between the local cultures and the local church. Thus, a "bridging dialogue" is a lived mission experience of the LRMS today.

PILLARS OF LRMS SPIRITUALITY

There are 5 Pillars that comprise LRMS Spirituality namely:

1) Jesus Christ the High Priest - LRMS spirituality is Christ-centered and it is anchored on a special identity of Jesus Christ the High Priest. He is the image of the "invisible God" incarnated to us and through the ministry of the Holy Eucharist, the missionary makes Him incarnated through the sacramental signs of Bread and Wine. LRMS spirituality is an incarnational spirituality by faith in Christ who became man and the missionary gives birth to the presence of Christ through the Holy Eucharist.

2) Mille Animas (a thousand lives)- LRMS spirituality is inspired by the "mille animas" experience. It is rooted in the confession of faith of San Lorenzo Ruiz who died a martyr's death. Before his executioners in 1637, he proclaimed: "I am a Catholic, and I wholeheartedly accept death for God. If I had a thousand lives, I would rather offer them all to Him." The LRMS missionaries find the root of their inspiration from San Lorenzo Ruiz's offering of his own life for God and for the Christian faith.

3) Love for local culture- LRMS spirituality is culture-related life and ministry. It values misison towards local cultures and the LRMS has a preferrential option for the Filipino-Chinese culture. The love for local culture is the gateway toward enhancing the love for mission and the love for the Church. The love for local culture includes the love for the poor and the care for the environment.

4) Missio Dei- LRMS spirituality is navigated by the call of the signs of the times. It believes in the shifts of the paradigms of mission even in the Society itself as a sign of docility to the Holy Spirit who is the principal agent of mission. LRMS missionaries continue the mission of God in the world and in the local cultures where the Church is planted. It is a spirituality that is rooted in the Blessed Trinity and the LRMS develops Confessio Trinitatis.

5) Bridging and Dialogic- LRMS spirituality promotes bridging dialogue. It is a form of missionary activity that adheres to self-sacrifice and self-emptying in order to bridge peoples and cultures. A bridge carries the weight of those pass by yet a bridge is dialogic because it connects one point to another. The LRMS missionaries are bridges and agents of dialogue in their specific mission work.

The Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society has been guided by three important images in its existence and direction which form the spirituality of its mission throughout the years namely: Communion, Bridge, and Mission.

THE EMERGING SIGNS OF COMMUNION

1) LOCATION- The location of the emerging new community for the mission was the San Carlos Pastoral Formation Complex. It becomes one of the added features of the pastoral identity which the Archdiocese of Manila seeks to develop in the 1980s.

2) COMMUNITY WITHIN COMMUNITIES- The emergence of the Lorenzo Mission Institute and the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society happened in an interesting context. Geographically, the Lorenzo Mission Institute was established as one among other diocesan seminaries in the Archdiocese of Manila. Located at San Carlos Pastoral Formation Complex, the seminary seats as a missionary institute pastorally united in a diversity of charisms.

THE EMERGING CULTURAL SIGNS OF BRIDGING

a. Bridge- The word "bridge" in the history of the Lorenzo Mission Institute and the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society was an important historical concept in the life and direction of the two institutions. It is not a daily nor a frequent word we hear from its members, nor spoken of in the plenary and ordinary meetings, nor included in talks, conferences, and even in homilies. However, the word captures the missionary spirituality of both institutions. The publication of the Lorenzo Mission Institute and the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society is named "The Bridge." But what is really "the bridge" in the experience of the Society and every seminarian in the seminary formation. There are some concepts, some spiritual reflections and inner stirrings of the Spirit that is working in the word "bridge" with regard to the mission and the experiences of the members in the Society. To be missionaries means to carry the weight of peoples and cultures. It is a moment of self-giving and self-emptying.
1) Construction- a bridge is constructed by human hands yet the call or the plan to have a bridge to connect two realities is a call of God.
2) Reconstruction- Bridges wear out in time. They need to be reconstructed and renewed. Bridges may be in the form of people, system, and structure. The founders of the Lorenzo Mission Institute and the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society were the first generation bridges. They had their own context to encounter and address yet they constructed the bridge that pictured out the context and missionary needs of the time. The seminarians needed to be formed to succeed the first generation bridge to a reconstructed bridge of the current age.

b. Two Opposite Points- a bridge has two ends which symbolizes two cultures or peoples. Mission involves two realities namely: the one who is sent and the other is the recipient of mission. A bridge is connects two cultures and a diversity of cultures.
1) Diversity- The LRMS experiences cultural diversity. It serves the Filipino-Chinese culture, the Filipino Culture, the Taiwanese Culture. It also experiences evolving and changing cultures in the mission stations they are serving. There are no two cultures that are exactly the same. The Society has to at home with plurality and a integrated diversity.
2) Intercultural Relationships- The call towards dialogue is one of the important missions of the LRMS. It is involved with the dialogue with cultures and subcultures. There is still the presence of Buddhist practices among the Filipino-Chinese communities, the presence of Filipino-Chinese popular piety, and the dynamic presence among Filipino communities. The poor is one of the most important dimension of missionary activities in the LRMS. They cannot forget the poor and the underprivileged in their apostolate. There are Filipino-Chinese who are poor and less fortunate.
3) Mission- The two points of a bridge reminds the missionary of his divine calling "to go." He has to embark from his place of origin and leave for the people he is called to serve at the other end of the bridge. It entails sacrifice, giving up, and kenosis. It involves total trust in the Lord because he has no idea what will happen next. He brings in his heart the faith he has with Jesus, and takes with him the mind of the Church.
4) Dialogue- Both ends of the bridge remind the missionary of his service to humanity. He is reminded that he embarks on one end and comes to the other end to illustrate his mission for Christ which is to lead all humanity to Him. He makes people encounter Christ through dialogue and he has to have the zeal for souls.
5) Contextual- An important aspect of mission which the LRMS develops is context. The evangelization among the people should be one that is adapted to the context and signs of the times.

c. Water- The water under the bridge symbolizes the direction and the path of mission.
1) Challenges- the water under the bridge symbolizes the challenges of mission. The Filipino-Chinese Apostolate was strengthened by the Chinese seminarians who came from Mainland China and sailed to the Philippines in 1949 during the political challenges that affected the missionary activities during that time.
2) Gap- the water under the bridge represents the gap between two countries. Missio ad Gentes involves a sending and a receiving country. It entails a geographical consideration. Thus, the water represents the distance which missionaries have to travel in order to evangelize.
3) Medium- The Chinese came to the Philippines wave after wave. Their influx into the Philippines by way of the sea built cordial relationships between Filipinos and Chinese. The water became the means which brought the Chinese towards conversion and their incorporation into the Church.
4) Dependence- the uncertainties of the Chinese at sea in coming to the Philppines became a significant image of courage and boldness while the missionaries who desire for the evangelization of the Chinese are confronted with the uncertainties of mission as they embark from the Philippines to the their mission areas. The water became the source of their dependence on God and interior strength in every missionary work in a strange and unfamiliar place.

d. People- The Trinitarian communion of persons begets the mission of communion. The people on the opposite end of the bridge are people waiting, yearning, and hoping to hear the Gospel.
1) Chinese overseas- The Gospel goes beyond territorial boundaries. The Gospel indicates a God who desires to speak to His people. He needs agents, the missionaries, to bring the Gospel to various peoples especially the poor. It was the dream of the founders to bridge the local church with those Chinese communities beyond the Philippine archipelago.
2) Filipino-Chinese- The local Chinese in the Philippines and those of ethnic Chinese descent are the recipients of an apostolate that has been present since the 16th century. The Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society has the mission to bridge different generations of Chinese and to bridge the Filipino and Chinese cultures.
3) Filipinos- The Filipino-Chinese and the Chinese in the Philippines live in a majority Filipino population and have integrated the Filipino values in the family and individual levels. The exhibit cultural values more Filipino than Chinese. The rapid evolving cultures in the Philippines prompt the ethnic Chinese to incline towards integration rather than be a separate cultural group. Mission in the Philippines with regard to ethnic Chinese presence should have something to do with bridging cultures, traditions, and generations.

THE EMERGING FORMS OF DIALOGUE IN LRMS

The experiences of dialogue shape the missionary spirituality of the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society. It is the Holy Spirit who directs the Society in every context to pursue the paths of missionary life in order to build its own identity and spirituality. The experiences of dialogue in the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society demands reflection to identify more clearly the work of the Spirit in the apostolate. However, the following forms of dialogue may shape the LRMS missionary spirituality. As the Society exists in every context, it is called to bridge itself with the different cultures, peoples, contexts, institutions, past and present cultural mentalities.

1) Dialogue with the Filipino-Chinese Apostolate- When the Lorenzo Mission Institute was established in 1987, it was pursuing one of the most important paths which is to introduce the seminarians into the Filipino-Chinese Apostolate. By their exposure, it would provide the necessary disposition to serve in the parishes, schools and other institutions that have to do with the Filipino-Chinese Apostolate.  The purpose and reason for a new seminary was to acquaint the seminarians with a trajectory goal of serving the Filipino-Chinese communities in the future. To be acquainted, informed, prepared for the apostolate are traces of dialogue because the priests of the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society have to be relevant to the real situation of the Filipino-Chinese Apostolate and the ethnic Chinese communities related to it.

2) Dialogue with Filipino-Chinese Culture- The Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society has to be involved with the Filipino-Chinese culture. The local church has to live with its local cultures and thus, the church's mission has to be relevant with its people. It was a plan at the outset of the Lorenzo Mission Institute that a preferrable candidate for missionary formation was a Filipino-Chinese or Chinese-Filipino. However, in the course of time, it was difficult to obtain seminarians from the Filipino-Chinese communities because of cultural and family reasons. This gave way to open its doors to purely Filipino candidates. To learn and adapt with the ways of life and worldviews of the Filipino-Chinese was to be imbued even at the outset of seminary formation. This simple form of dialogue with culture would be a prelude toward a wider integration with the Filipino-Chinese communities. These experiences of dialogue are both part of seminary formation and missionary experiences among the priests of the Society as they are working among the Filipino-Chinese communities. The dialogue which involves knowing, understanding, rectifying and promoting popular religiosity. There are religious practices among the Filipino-Chinese that have to be preserved and promoted while they have also to be rectified and to be developed. These acts are concretely indicative of mission of "bridging dialogue."

3) Dialogue with Filipino-Chinese Institutions- The wider pastoral exposures of the seminarians in the Lorenzo Mission Institute are in the schools, chapels, parishes and other institutions related to the Filipino-Chinese Apostolate to prepare them for work among the Filipino-Chinese Communities. To be assigned as missionary priests in these institutions are in constant dialogue with people, students, parishioners, and the poor.

4) Dialogue with Dioceses- It is the experience of the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society that priests have their mission assignments in other dioceses within the Philippines aside from the Archdiocese of Manila. This form of mission is called missio ad exteros. It has also been part of the life of the Lorenzo Mission Institute as well as the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society that both seminarians and priests are sent beyond the shores of the Philippines for pastoral exposure and missionary assignment. This kind of exposure is called missio ad gentes. Both priests and seminarians sent abroad bring with them the humility, patience, kindness, and kenotic heart to build bridges and foster dialogue. The Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society serves in Taiwan, Philippines, and Australia.

5) Dialogue with Generations- The Filipino-Chinese Communities are not a cohesive group but a mixture of generations. The older and younger generations have to be bridged through dialogue and cultural understanding. The Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society is exposed directly to these generations and it calls for a response when these generations feel the gaps. Since the time priests were ordained in the Society, they were all acquainted with the life of the Filipino-Chinese in all generation levels. They have been instruments of cohesiveness and dialogue both young and old generations.

6) Dialogue with the Chinese- It has been the experiences of seminarians and priests of the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society to do missionary work and exposures in Mainland China and in Taiwan. There is only one purpose of their stay in these countries: to be an agent of "bridging dialogue." To be a "bridge" and to be in "dialogue" are two great missionary tasks of the members of the Society. Like Jesus who was the "bridge" between God and the people of Israel, so too are the missionaries who foster bridging the people and Christ through the Church and the sacraments they celebrate. 

7) Dialogue with the Poor- The Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society is not negligent of the poor which comprises a big portion of the parishes and institutions they serve. Even in formation, the seminary provides the exposure for seminarians to live with the poor and to be poor through simplicity and humility. One of the bridges that the Society could build is to dialogue and live as Gospel witnesses with the poor.