Dr the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley is ex­tend­ing Good Fri­day Greet­ings to the na­tion. He re­minds the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to be mind­ful of the COVID-19 virus, al­so urg­ing cit­i­zens to re­main hope­ful dur­ing this time.

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Prime Min­is­ter:

I ex­tend Good Fri­day Greet­ings to all on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, my fam­i­ly, and my­self as Prime Min­is­ter.

At this time two of the world’s largest re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties are cel­e­brat­ing holy fes­ti­vals. Last week, you may re­call I ex­tend­ed Greet­ings to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty at the be­gin­ning of the month of Ra­madan, which is con­sid­ered by its mem­bers as the time in which they can search, ex­pand and deep­en their spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tions.

To­day, I ex­tend greet­ings to the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty, as its mem­bers ob­serve Good Fri­day, mark­ing the cru­ci­fix­ion and death of Je­sus Christ at Cal­vary. This is part of Holy Week, in which the Pas­sion nar­ra­tive be­gins with Christ’s tri­umphant re­turn to Jerusalem on­to his cru­ci­fix­ion, death and even­tu­al res­ur­rec­tion on the glo­ri­ous Sun­day.

With­in that Pas­sion nar­ra­tive, there are as­pects, which I find are es­pe­cial­ly rel­e­vant in this coun­try’s present cir­cum­stance – Christ’s Agony in the Gar­den of Geth­se­mane and the Sta­tions of the Cross, or the Way of Sor­rows. There we see Je­sus be­ing test­ed, suf­fer­ing, bear­ing and en­dur­ing, even ques­tion­ing him­self -- yet dis­play­ing the virtue of pa­tience which is re­quired when one con­fronts dif­fi­cul­ties in their own life’s jour­ney. Je­sus’s agony here needs to be read and re-read, for it stands as an ex­am­ple to us all.

Trinidad and To­ba­go, hope­ful­ly, has just come through the worst of the rav­ages of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but we must be alert, watch­ing the virus cau­tious­ly, be­cause of the new up­surge in Chi­na.

Now, we are fac­ing the con­se­quences of the war in Ukraine, which many thought ini­tial­ly would be un­re­lat­ed to our world, but that, along with the sup­ply chain cri­sis, con­tin­ues to cause world­wide shifts in food and fu­el prices which will touch every pock­et, every house­hold --- across the globe.

We in Trinidad and To­ba­go, are not im­mune, for these con­se­quences will be felt world­wide for some time to come. This is why the Pas­sion nar­ra­tive of Christ has rel­e­vance in our dai­ly lives.

The world to­day, some say, ex­ists in “The Age of the Un­think­able” in which every day there are com­plex and con­found­ing chal­lenges fac­ing us all. These chal­lenges could be in­ter­pret­ed as that “Awak­en­ing Mo­ment” for every cit­i­zen, that time in which we all could go in­to our­selves, search­ing deeply for the high­er aware­ness, and its sub­lime truths, open­ing our­selves to the in­vis­i­ble pres­ence of God in our lives.

We know that some of our cit­i­zens may be feel­ing at this point, down, fear­ful, stressed, ex­haust­ed and de­plet­ed, but this Good Fri­day could be that “Mo­ment” in which we can re­plen­ish our­selves, turn­ing for so­lace and hope in the spir­i­tu­al path of life, recog­nis­ing that there are good and bad, light and dark­ness and that we will get over these dif­fi­cult days.

Which one we chose, Fel­low Cit­i­zens, is all up to us, na­tion­al­ly and in­di­vid­u­al­ly.

We must seek that process of re­fin­ing, mak­ing God’s pres­ence re­al in our dai­ly lives, we will then find that high­er plane, above a life of tur­bu­lence, be­ing re­placed by one of ela­tion, a buoy­an­cy and in­ner peace.

Fel­low cit­i­zens, find some time to­day, to sur­ren­der to that stir­ring, hu­man im­pulse with­in you, say­ing some­thing pleas­ant, and be­ing kind and gen­er­ous to those around you. In so do­ing we will throw away the words of the hate­ful who con­stant­ly in­vite us in­to neg­a­tive hope­less­ness when such blessed hope is avail­able.

Make it a point to­day, to find a spe­cial mo­ment to show love, care and com­pas­sion to oth­ers, and dis­play your over­all love of hu­man­i­ty.

Holy Good Fri­day to all cit­i­zens.