Ver­non Khelawan

On Cor­pus Christi day (June 23), the Arch­dio­cese for­mal­ly launched the sec­ond pas­toral pri­or­i­ty-"Re­vi­tal­is­ing Catholic Cul­ture and Iden­ti­ty"-as man­dat­ed by the Third Sit­ting of the Syn­od held in Jan­u­ary/Feb­ru­ary 2009. Al­though the Catholic Church is uni­ver­sal, the de­mo­graph­ics have changed and con­tin­ues to change as we en­ter the sec­ond decade of the new mil­len­ni­um, mak­ing it im­per­a­tive that the lo­cal church find ways and means to re­vi­talise its cul­ture and iden­ti­ty. When Ms­gr Al­lan Ven­tour spoke on the is­sue at the Syn­od, he re­mind­ed us that cul­ture was a way of life. The in­vi­ta­tion of Je­sus to fol­low Him and our ac­cep­tance of this in­vi­ta­tion marks us out in a par­tic­u­lar way and gives us our Chris­t­ian iden­ti­ty. Our Catholic his­to­ry and the­ol­o­gy in­forms our pe­cu­liar cul­ture and makes us unique. Je­sus el­e­vat­ed the world by us­ing or­di­nary things and the Church has con­tin­ued this tra­di­tion. Or­di­nary wa­ter is blessed and used for anoint­ing peo­ple and ob­jects. Com­mon salt can al­so be blessed. The oils blessed by the bish­op at the an­nu­al Chrism Mass in Holy Week are used in anoint­ings which form part of many of the sacra­ments of the church. There are al­so wood­en and cop­per cru­ci­fix­es all around us at home and in our schools, so that there are no prob­lems us­ing sym­bols be­cause "we have a pos­i­tive world view."

Such a world view, there­fore, de­ter­mines the way we cel­e­brate. Hav­ing a good time is a pos­i­tive thing be­cause we are us­ing the things that have been re­deemed by our God. It is not un­usu­al that af­ter the Bap­tism, First Com­mu­nion and Con­fir­ma­tion cer­e­monies we have par­ties. At Christ­mas we usu­al­ly spend a lot of mon­ey to have lav­ish meals for our fam­i­lies and vis­i­tors. These times are spe­cial and must be made mem­o­rable. This is part of our Catholic cul­ture be­cause we are us­ing the things that have been re­deemed by Je­sus. Many may not know that car­ni­val orig­i­nat­ed in the Catholic coun­tries of Eu­rope-France, Por­tu­gal and South­ern Ger­many-and was brought to Trinidad and To­ba­go through the French. "Car­ni­val is cre­ativ­i­ty which is a gift from God and we are em­pow­ered to use the things of the earth in in­no­v­a­tive ways as we cel­e­brate this fes­ti­val," Ms­gr Ven­tour said. "God has blessed us here in Trinidad and To­ba­go in a very spe­cial way.

"He has giv­en us the steel­pan which is tru­ly a fas­ci­nat­ing mu­si­cal in­stru­ment...the pan and oth­er forms of mu­sic all point be­yond them­selves. They are in­clud­ed in our sacra­men­tal view of the world," he added. As the church cel­e­brates, it us­es the things of this world to glo­ri­fy God. The Paschal can­dle sig­ni­fies the Risen Lord; the eter­nal light in the sanc­tu­ary in­di­cates the pres­ence of the Eu­charist, while every­day colours are used to in­di­cate the dif­fer­ent sea­sons in the church cal­en­dar and or­di­nary mu­si­cal in­stru­ments are used to praise God. Now that the time has come to pay par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of our Catholic cul­ture and iden­ti­ty, the ex­hor­ta­tion by the Syn­od Im­ple­men­ta­tion Team to all the parish­es about the pas­toral pri­or­i­ty can be put in the con­text of to­day's Gospel by Matthew (13:1-23) about the sow­er and the seed. It can be con­sid­ered a call for Catholics to be­come the rich soil for the seed that has been plant­ed so long ago and which must be­come a rich har­vest in our time.