Com­ing off a long and loud Car­ni­val sea­son filled with pageantry and ec­sta­sy, the Lenten sea­son, which be­gan yes­ter­day with the tra­di­tion­al Ash Wednes­day ob­ser­vance, of­fers T&T a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to do some much-need­ed in­tro­spec­tion, both in­di­vid­u­al­ly and as a coun­try.

As we em­bark on this solemn pe­ri­od of re­flec­tion for Chris­tians, the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness of the na­tion should be awak­ened over the next 40 days, with Mus­lims across the coun­try al­so fast­ing dur­ing the Holy Month of Ra­madan, and Hin­dus prepar­ing to fast lat­er this month for the fes­ti­val of Navara­tri.

For a coun­try of many re­li­gions, this in­ter-faith op­por­tu­ni­ty al­lows us to bind in a unique way and to show that our dif­fer­ences make us stronger as a na­tion.

Giv­en the so­ci­etal chal­lenges we are fac­ing in T&T, in­tro­spec­tion at every lev­el is key.

We must there­fore make full use of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­ter the wilder­ness of our own lives through prayer, fast­ing and the giv­ing of alms.

Fast­ing is cru­cial in every re­li­gion. How­ev­er, for the Lenten sea­son, it need not be a fast from the ma­te­r­i­al de­sires of things like al­co­hol, meat, choco­late or so­cial me­dia alone. In­stead, one can fol­low Pope Fran­cis’ call for us to ex­am­ine our in­ward and spir­i­tu­al be­ing.

In his Ash Wednes­day homi­ly, the ail­ing pon­tiff ac­knowl­edged the fragili­ty of the hu­man con­di­tion, while sug­gest­ing that the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ties of our time should spur us as a peo­ple to walk to­geth­er, be open with one an­oth­er, and turn to our God, who wants peace and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.

“Let us turn back to God, let us re­turn to him with all our hearts,” the pope said.

“Let us learn from alms­giv­ing to go be­yond our­selves, shar­ing each oth­er’s needs and nur­tur­ing the hope of a fair­er world.”

The pope had pre­vi­ous­ly sug­gest­ed fast­ing from anger and re­plac­ing it with pa­tience; fast­ing from com­plain­ing and be­ing more grate­ful; fast­ing from grudges and rec­on­cil­ing our dif­fer­ences, as well as fast­ing from words and be­ing more silent.

If we are to re­shape T&T, these are all es­sen­tial com­po­nents to look at and Lent pro­vides the per­fect plat­form for us to be­gin such soul-search­ing.

It al­lows us to ad­mit to the wrongs we have done, re­pent and trans­form our­selves.

On the oth­er hand, it al­so gives us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to for­give those who have wronged us, which could be the im­pe­tus need­ed for heal­ing this na­tion, es­pe­cial­ly in this elec­tion year when our po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences threat­en to fur­ther di­vide us.

As the po­lit­i­cal cam­paign­ing heats up ahead of the gen­er­al elec­tion con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due by Au­gust, politi­cians need to take down the rhetoric. They must lead by ex­am­ple in how they treat with each oth­er and set the tone for the cit­i­zen­ry to fol­low.

On the back of a bloody 2024 which saw 614 peo­ple lose their lives to mur­ders, Lent of­fers an ide­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for cit­i­zens to pause and re­flect—not on­ly on their in­di­vid­ual lives but on the state of the so­ci­ety. Lent pro­vides a spir­i­tu­al frame­work for us to ad­dress these chal­lenges. Through re­pen­tance, sac­ri­fice and giv­ing, the na­tion can re-imag­ine it­self as a place of peace, heal­ing, and mu­tu­al re­spect.

In­di­vid­u­al­ly, as we seek to trans­form our­selves dur­ing this time, it can have a last­ing and trans­for­ma­tion­al ef­fect.