Ryan Ba­choo & Sascha Wil­son

Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don has chal­lenged the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty to re­turn to the sanc­ti­ty of the Lenten sea­son, say­ing it has been lost over time.

The Arch­bish­op made the call in one of three mass­es he presided over dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Ash Wednes­day ob­ser­vances, the third of which saw him of­fi­ci­ate at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain.

Ear­li­er in the day, he cel­e­brat­ed morn­ing mass at the Arch­bish­op’s Chapel, where he de­liv­ered a sting­ing crit­i­cism of the treat­ment of Lent.

“We are at a time right now where Lent is just an­oth­er day,” he told his con­gre­ga­tion.

“Ash Wednes­day is just an­oth­er day. It’s cool-down some­where day. Where­as we had rit­u­als and rhythms that gave us de­f­i­n­i­tion, so the Car­ni­val was a pre-Lenten cel­e­bra­tion, now the Car­ni­val has gone drift­ing on its own mer­its. Lent now is be­ing en­croached con­stant­ly by this show and that show, this event and that oth­er par­ty we have stopped recog­nis­ing the sanc­ti­ty of this sa­cred sea­son.”

He called on Catholics to change the way they mark the pe­ri­od of Lent and re­store the sa­cred­ness of the sea­son. He point­ed to the way rev­ellers stay away from cer­tain foods in the build-up to Car­ni­val in a bid to get their bod­ies in shape. He called on Catholics to adopt a sim­i­lar type of com­mit­ment.

“Let us hold the sanc­ti­ty of this sa­cred sea­son... They un­der­stand that for Car­ni­val there is a rit­u­al of giv­ing up and mor­ti­fy­ing the body, we must un­der­stand for Lent there are rit­u­als for mor­ti­fy­ing the body of prayer and alms giv­ing,” he said.

In his homi­ly at the Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church in San Fer­nan­do there­after, the Arch­bish­op ex­plained that Ash Wednes­day is a pub­lic procla­ma­tion of penance for not liv­ing up to what God wants, hence the ash­es on wor­ship­pers’ fore­heads.

He not­ed that it was the first time in a long time that Ash Wednes­day and Valen­tine’s Day were cel­e­brat­ed on the same day, but said both oc­ca­sions work to­geth­er.

Arch­bish­op Gor­don added that God is love but Chris­tians have failed to ful­fil God’s com­mand­ment to love.

“If we had lived up to the com­mand­ment of love, our coun­try could not be in the state that it is rid­dled in right now. If we had lived up to the com­mand­ment of love, then we could not have as many home­less peo­ple on the streets right now. If we would have lived up to the com­mand­ment of love, then we couldn’t have as many peo­ple in des­ti­tu­tion and in tra­vail in our na­tion as we have now. If we would have lived up to the com­mand­ment of love, broth­ers and sis­ters, this whole na­tion and our fam­i­lies and our church would be dif­fer­ent,” he said.

Ad­vis­ing parish­ioners to “in­ten­tion­al­ly ob­serve” the Lenten pe­ri­od, he said it was easy for Car­ni­val Tues­day “to roll right in­to Wednes­day, Thurs­day, Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, with var­i­ous fetes and events al­ready planned for Lent”.

“I am ask­ing us to in­ten­tion­al­ly choose to live this Lent like you have nev­er lived a Lent be­fore, to in­ten­tion­al­ly choose what you are go­ing to do with the prayer, what you are go­ing to do with the fast­ing and what you are go­ing to do with the alms giv­ing.”