Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

“Let Je­sus be in your DNA.” That was the mes­sage de­liv­ered by Fa­ther Matthew d’Here­aux yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a Sta­tions of the Cross pro­ces­sion, which con­clud­ed at Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

Be­fore dawn, wor­ship­pers em­barked on the solemn jour­ney, re­flect­ing on the events lead­ing to Je­sus’s cru­ci­fix­ion. Par­tic­i­pants took turns car­ry­ing the cross, in­clud­ing Fa­ther Matthew him­self.

The pro­ces­sion be­gan at the Cluny Eu­charis­tic Cen­tre on Mount Mo­ri­ah Road and end­ed at the Pro-Cathe­dral of Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help along Har­ris Prom­e­nade. Scores of wor­ship­pers en­act­ed the 14 events of the Sta­tions of the Cross, draw­ing the at­ten­tion of pedes­tri­ans and mo­torists alike.

Ad­dress­ing wor­ship­pers on the church com­pound, Fa­ther Matthew com­pared Trin­bag­o­ni­ans’ love for cul­ture with their de­vo­tion to Je­sus. “We say that pan is in our DNA, as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. Je­sus must be in your DNA, and His life, death, and res­ur­rec­tion, as Catholics, must al­ways be part of who we are.”

Not­ing that DNA dri­ves peo­ple’s ac­tions, he added, “If Je­sus is in our DNA, if the sto­ry of His life, death, and res­ur­rec­tion is in our DNA, it should dri­ve us to be a cer­tain kind of church, a cer­tain kind of peo­ple. We can’t help our­selves but love.”

Draw­ing a cul­tur­al par­al­lel, he said, “Just as on J’Ou­vert morn­ing ‘al­lyuh can’t help al­lyuh­self’ be­cause the mu­sic is in your DNA… and on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day the mu­sic is in your DNA… well, let Je­sus be in your DNA, so that you can’t help your­self but to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him.”

Fa­ther Matthew de­scribed the Lenten sea­son as a home­com­ing to God. “We go back home. We walk with Christ, we die with Christ on the cross, and we rise with Him to new life. So savour this mo­ment of our home­com­ing to Almighty God.”

He al­so ad­vised Catholics to stay away from so­cial me­dia for the re­main­der of the day. “If you have to look at a screen, let it be to watch the Pas­sion of Christ. Bask in the joy of re­turn­ing to the Fa­ther’s house, know­ing that even if you stray, you will al­ways have a place in God’s heart and in the Church,” he said.