JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, April 4, 2025

Archbishop urges flock to reject negativity on social media

by

KEVON FELMINE
91 days ago
20250103

As the Catholic Church cel­e­brates 2025 as its Ju­bilee Year, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don is call­ing on the faith­ful to re­ject the neg­a­tiv­i­ty of­ten spread through vi­ral so­cial memes.

Preach­ing at the Pro-Cathe­dral of Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help in San Fer­nan­do on Tues­day night, Gor­don lament­ed that one of the na­tion’s chal­lenges is its ten­den­cy to wal­low in de­spair, de­spon­den­cy and de­pres­sion. These is­sues, he said, are ev­i­dent in pub­lic dis­course on me­dia plat­forms and in oth­er fo­rums.

“What you hear is so neg­a­tive, as if there is noth­ing good that hap­pens in our coun­try,” Gor­don told the con­gre­ga­tion.

With the Ju­bilee theme be­ing Pil­grims of Hope, he urged his lis­ten­ers to avoid par­tic­i­pat­ing in such neg­a­tiv­i­ty. He en­cour­aged them to delete memes with neg­a­tive mes­sages and to re­ply to the senders, say­ing, “You do not need to pass around neg­a­tiv­i­ty any more.”

“As a pil­grim of hope, let us look at find­ing the beau­ti­ful things about our na­tion. A pil­grim of hope will see the truth of the beau­ty of this beau­ti­ful na­tion of ours and recog­nise in our peo­ple, of such di­ver­si­ty, a grace that God has giv­en us, which we should be cel­e­brat­ing every sin­gle day,” Gor­don said.

He called on Catholics to en­gage their faith in new ways in 2025. Draw­ing a par­al­lel, he asked the con­gre­ga­tion if they had ever faced a debt they could not re­pay and wished some­one would step in to set­tle it. He said even if they lived 25,000 life­times, they could nev­er re­pay their debt to God be­cause of their sins. How­ev­er, he em­pha­sised that this was why God sent Je­sus in­to the world.

Ex­plain­ing that a Ju­bilee Year is a time when God’s mer­cy is giv­en in su­per­abun­dance, Gor­don shared a per­son­al sto­ry of en­coun­ter­ing a young man at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion last Sun­day. The man, whom Gor­don had known as a child, had a spo­radic re­la­tion­ship with God.

Gor­don told him, “This is the year to get your re­la­tion­ship right, as God can for­give you for all your sins.”

He high­light­ed that the Year of Ju­bilee of­fers a spe­cial grace of mer­cy, where all debts are for­giv­en.

In­vok­ing the bib­li­cal prin­ci­ple that char­i­ty be­gins at home, Gor­don en­cour­aged Catholics to ex­tend for­give­ness to oth­ers, start­ing with­in their own fam­i­lies. He ac­knowl­edged that those clos­est to us are of­ten the ones who ir­ri­tate us the most, and urged the con­gre­ga­tion to ex­am­ine their re­la­tion­ships for any lin­ger­ing re­sent­ment.

“You know some­times you are vexed with some­body, and you have been vexed with them so long, you can­not even re­mem­ber why? If you are vexed with some­one for so long that you have for­got­ten the rea­son, or even if you do re­mem­ber, do not let this year end with vex­a­tion in your fam­i­ly or your thoughts.”

Gor­don likened vex­a­tion to a mill­stone around one’s neck, drag­ging peo­ple to places they should not go. He re­mind­ed the con­gre­ga­tion that “un­for­give­ness” is one of the great sins against God, who has been ex­ceed­ing­ly gen­er­ous in for­giv­ing hu­man­i­ty.

“What God for­gives us for, we could not re­pay in ten life­times, yet some­times we can­not for­give oth­ers for lit­tle fool­ish­ness that is not even worth re­mem­ber­ing, far less hold­ing on to for so long,” he said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored