Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don yes­ter­day warned against putting God on a to-do list. In­stead, make God the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty he said in his Ash Wednes­day ser­mon mark­ing the start of Lent at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help in San Fer­nan­do.

He told mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion if God is no longer first in their lives, by ex­ten­sion the world will be­come dis­pas­sion­ate and unlov­ing. The prob­lem is not that peo­ple don’t be­lieve in God, but that God is no longer the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty in their life, Gor­don said.

“I think we have lost a sense of what a pri­or­i­ty re­al­ly is be­cause we make every­thing such a big pri­or­i­ty that when it comes to the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty, God, God is just one among ten oth­er things we try­ing to jug­gle in our day. God can’t be one of many, God can’t be one of our pri­or­i­ties among every oth­er pri­or­i­ty. Lent is here for us to recog­nise, seek He first the King­dom of God and then all these oth­er things will be added,” the Arch­bish­op added.

De­clar­ing that the truth is that peo­ple have shift­ed their eyes and gaze from God, he said God has been “crowd­ed out” by every­thing thing else in their lives. He ex­plained that EGO means Edg­ing God Out and when that hap­pens peo­ple be­come dis­pas­sion­ate and unlov­ing.

“So any­time God is not first it’s be­cause EGO is fill­ing that space and when EGO is not fill­ing that space, broth­ers and sis­ters, we don’t be­come a more com­pas­sion­ate world. We be­come a more hard world, a more hard­ened peo­ple, a peo­ple who are not lov­ing and kind to each oth­er.

“Just look and see what you see around and ask is God first be­cause that’s what is core and cen­tre of Lent,” Gor­don said

The Arch­bish­op en­cour­aged Ro­man Catholics to pray, fast and give alms dur­ing Lent, ex­plain­ing that those spir­i­tu­al works will help them to recog­nise that God is first.

“God is not one item on our to-do list. God is, and the whole list is then ori­ent­ed by God and that’s how we get back the time that we need to do the things that we need to do,” he said

In­stead of spend­ing time on so­cial me­dia, use­less phone calls and gos­sip­ing, Gor­don sug­gest­ed us­ing that time to put God first.

“The best gift we can give to our fam­i­ly, to our church com­mu­ni­ty and our na­tion is to spend these 40 days of train­ing and ob­serve them faith­ful­ly. For the 40 days, keep­ing God to the fore­front of our life and keep­ing God first in every­thing that we do and if we were to do that with these 40 days, we would be a bet­ter hu­man be­ing. It will im­pact our fam­i­lies. It will im­pact our na­tion,” he said

Gor­don en­cour­aged Ro­man Catholics to re-ori­ent their mind to putting God first in their lives.

“If we all put God first, what a beau­ti­ful place this will do what a won­der­ful place this will be,” he said.