RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don has urged Catholics to make this Lenten sea­son a time of true re­flec­tion, fast­ing and thanks­giv­ing, chal­leng­ing them to go be­yond tra­di­tion and even fast from so­cial me­dia while giv­ing alms to the poor.

De­liv­er­ing his Ash Wednes­day homi­ly at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help RC Church in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Arch­bish­op Gor­don called on wor­ship­pers to ex­am­ine their hearts and re­new their re­la­tion­ship with God.

“If you have nev­er sinned and al­ways done what is right, you may leave now,” he quipped.

“But if you’re like the rest of us — Saint Paul says all have sinned and fall short of the glo­ry of God — then this sea­son is for you.”

The Arch­bish­op stressed that Lent is not about out­ward ap­pear­ances but an in­ter­nal con­ver­sion.

Point­ing to what he de­scribed as a grow­ing moral cri­sis in Trinidad and To­ba­go, he said, “What is wrong is be­ing de­fend­ed as if it is right. We must put God first.”

He did not shy away from con­fronting mod­ern habits.

“When we say we don’t have time to pray but we have time for scrolling, what is that?” he asked the con­gre­ga­tion.

“If we want to make God first, we need to re­claim time from so­cial me­dia.”

De­scrib­ing Lent as a “hon­ey­moon pe­ri­od” with God, Gor­don urged Catholics to em­brace prayer, fast­ing and giv­ing — all three to­geth­er, not just one or the oth­er. Be­yond the tra­di­tion­al meat­less Fri­days and re­duced meals, he en­cour­aged cre­ative forms of sac­ri­fice, in­clud­ing cut­ting back on on­line time.

Fam­i­lies, he said, should prac­tice alms­giv­ing in prac­ti­cal ways.

“Have a lit­tle pig­gy bank at home,” he sug­gest­ed.

“Every­one in the house­hold — moth­er, fa­ther, broth­ers, sis­ters — con­tributes week­ly. At the end of Lent, give it to a fam­i­ly in need.”

Such acts, he not­ed, teach chil­dren gen­eros­i­ty, sol­i­dar­i­ty and strength­en faith at home.

The Arch­bish­op, who caused a stir ahead of Car­ni­val when he called out mas band Tribe for dis­trib­ut­ing sex toys in cos­tume pack­ages to fe­male mas­quer­aders, al­so chal­lenged be­liev­ers to deep­en their spir­i­tu­al ma­tu­ri­ty.

“Many go to con­fes­sion fo­cus­ing on mi­nor faults with­out ask­ing whether they tru­ly love God above all else. Where is God in your life? When oth­er things or peo­ple take pri­or­i­ty, that breaks the first com­mand­ment.”

Warn­ing of spir­i­tu­al drift, he said: “Our coun­try is head­ing in the wrong way. It is time to grow up spir­i­tu­al­ly.”

Ash Wednes­day marks the start of the 40-day Lenten jour­ney lead­ing to East­er, tra­di­tion­al­ly ob­served by Catholics world­wide as a sea­son of re­pen­tance, re­flec­tion, and re­new­al.