RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In­stead of greet­ing peo­ple with hugs and hand­shakes, Ro­man Catholic priest Fa­ther David Khan yes­ter­day urged wor­ship­pers to give “sweet eyes,” (winks) and peace signs as a pre­cau­tion to COVID-19.

This as the risk of COVID-19 spread­ing to the Caribbean was deemed very high by the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Au­thor­i­ty, (CARPHA).

De­liv­er­ing his ser­mon dur­ing Sun­day mass at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church in San Fer­nan­do, Fa­ther Khan de­fend­ed the church’s de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the dis­tri­b­u­tion of sacra­men­tal wine dur­ing com­mu­nion.

The wine, which rep­re­sents the blood of Christ, is usu­al­ly dis­trib­uted along with un­leav­ened bread, which sym­bol­is­es the body of Christ.

“Many peo­ple are say­ing why does the church stop dis­trib­ut­ing the blood of Christ. The blood of Je­sus can­not be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. The truth is the ves­sel hold­ing the blood is made of met­al. The COVID virus when it lands of met­al, it lives for nine hours,” Khan said.

He added that if some­one touch­es the cup and pass­es it on, then a spread can take place.

“This is just a safe­guard for pre­vent­ing any spread. We know the blood of Je­sus can­not be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed but the ves­sel can. The virus is very con­ta­gious. It is found in droplets so the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the virus touch­ing some­one’s tongue and spread­ing to some­one else, that is how it will spread. We need not be lis­ten­ing to peo­ple who are ques­tion­ing us. We need to lis­ten to our church. The Lord is speak­ing to us through the Church,” he added.

He not­ed that Trin­bag­o­ni­ans loved con­tact but not­ed that this must soon stop.

“God for­bid that our coun­try ex­pe­ri­ences this. We pray that it may nev­er come but in case it does, we have to take pre­cau­tions. Trinida­di­ans al­ready know how to ex­press love with­out touch­ing, the sign of peace, or a sweet eye. When it is in­ti­mate and you are a dis­tance apart, look at their faces and give a sweet eye. Let our ho­li­ness shine through,” Khan added.

Last week Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don said the church was on high med­ical alert as it pre­pared for COVID- 19. The virus has in­fect­ed 109,696 peo­ple in over 95 coun­tries, out of which 3,802 have died. Al­most 61,000 have re­cov­ered.