Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is urg­ing cit­i­zens to recom­mit to the val­ues of com­pas­sion, com­mu­ni­ty and grace that lie at the heart of the Cor­pus Christi cel­e­bra­tion.

The re­li­gious hol­i­day was ob­served yes­ter­day.

In her 2025 Cor­pus Christi mes­sage, Kan­ga­loo said the oc­ca­sion should in­spire every Trin­bag­on­ian—re­gard­less of faith—to live lives marked by love, for­give­ness and ser­vice to oth­ers.

“As we cel­e­brate this sa­cred feast, may we re­new our com­mit­ment to the val­ues it em­bod­ies,” the Pres­i­dent said. “Let us con­scious­ly and de­lib­er­ate­ly ap­ply the char­ac­ter­is­tics of Christ to every area of our lives.”

Cor­pus Christi, she ex­plained, com­mem­o­rates the Re­al Pres­ence of Je­sus Christ in the Holy Eu­charist and serves as a pro­found re­minder that God is “phys­i­cal­ly here among us for all time.”

That mes­sage, she said, is not just for Ro­man Catholics but res­onates with all faiths: “It is the great­est as­sur­ance that hu­man be­ings have of a God who will nev­er desert us, and who will al­ways be with us no mat­ter how dif­fi­cult the cir­cum­stances.”

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has called on church­es and faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions to chart “new and in­no­v­a­tive paths” to reach young peo­ple and the vul­ner­a­ble, en­cour­ag­ing them to evolve their meth­ods while hold­ing firm to their spir­i­tu­al mes­sage.

In her 2025 Cor­pus Christi mes­sage, the Prime Min­is­ter said re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions must adapt to re­main rel­e­vant in an in­creas­ing­ly com­plex world. “We must speak their lan­guage, un­der­stand their strug­gles, and walk be­side them with pa­tience and em­pa­thy,” she said. “If we are to se­cure a fu­ture root­ed in faith and dig­ni­ty, we must en­sure that no one—es­pe­cial­ly our young peo­ple—feels alien­at­ed from the mes­sage of love and pur­pose that the Church brings.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the feast of Cor­pus Christi as more than a re­li­gious tra­di­tion, call­ing it “a pow­er­ful re­minder of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­flect God’s grace in our own lives.” She urged cit­i­zens to use the oc­ca­sion to “plant seeds of peace in our homes, seeds of jus­tice in our com­mu­ni­ties, and seeds of hope in every heart.”

And Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les de­scribed Cor­pus Christi as a time to deep­en the coun­try’s com­mit­ment to com­pas­sion, uni­ty, and ser­vice to one an­oth­er.

“In these chal­leng­ing times, when Trinidad and To­ba­go and the rest of the world con­tin­ue to face so­cial and eco­nom­ic dif­fi­cul­ties,” she said, “the mes­sage of Cor­pus Christi is even more rel­e­vant.”

Beck­les re­flect­ed on her re­cent at­ten­dance at the Eu­charis­tic Con­gress, call­ing it a pow­er­ful ex­pres­sion of na­tion­al faith and sol­i­dar­i­ty. “It called up­on our cit­i­zens to be dis­ci­ples who trans­form our na­tion,” she said.

She en­cour­aged all cit­i­zens—Chris­t­ian and non-Chris­t­ian alike—to em­brace the val­ues of rev­er­ence and re­flec­tion that the feast rep­re­sents. “May we all re­mem­ber the in­her­ent im­por­tance of walk­ing to­geth­er in peace and love, and with hu­mil­i­ty and mu­tu­al re­spect.”

Quot­ing Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don, she added, “How do we di­rect the eyes and hearts of our peo­ple to what tru­ly mat­ters: wor­ship of the liv­ing God?”