KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

South­ern Vic­ari­ate Epis­co­pal Vic­ar, Fa­ther David Khan, yes­ter­day called on parish­ioners to be­come bea­cons of hope, as he not­ed the coun­try’s lead­ers had dis­ap­point­ed cit­i­zens.

He made the call af­ter the an­nu­al Sta­tions of the Cross ob­ser­vance end­ed at the Pro-Cathe­dral of Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help in San Fer­nan­do.

Call­ing the con­gre­ga­tion’s at­ten­tion to the Fifth Sta­tion, where Si­mon of Cyrene was com­pelled to car­ry Je­sus’ cross, Fa­ther Khan asked, “How of­ten do we see peo­ple in need and turn our backs, de­spite be­ing in a po­si­tion to help?”

He urged his flock to be­come pil­grims of hope, peo­ple who give with­out re­luc­tance, sup­port with­out prej­u­dice, and recog­nise hu­man­i­ty be­yond colour or creed. His words struck a chord, ac­knowl­edg­ing that lead­er­ship—whether in pol­i­tics, faith, or every­day life—is fraught with dis­ap­point­ments.

“Our lead­ers have dis­ap­point­ed us—in­clud­ing my­self,” he ad­mit­ted.

“But will we con­tin­ue to dis­ap­point each oth­er, or will we be­come a sym­bol of hope?”

Draw­ing par­al­lels be­tween Christ’s sac­ri­fice and the mod­ern chal­lenges of faith, Khan re­mind­ed wor­ship­pers that de­spite suf­fer­ing and death, Je­sus did not dis­ap­point.

Point­ing sky­ward to the cor­beaux cir­cling above, Khan turned the mo­ment light-heart­ed, call­ing them a sym­bol of death, yet one that could not over­shad­ow hope.

“Hope does not dis­ap­point. Our Lord Je­sus Christ is dead, but He will soon live again. He brought about a res­ur­rec­tion, and He will bring us to a new­ness of life. So, as we con­tin­ue our pil­grim jour­ney, we must learn from Je­sus and be­come that per­son of hope.”

Khan then posed a re­flec­tive ques­tion: What would be dif­fer­ent for you and your loved ones lat­er on?

“As you have made this jour­ney, will you go back­wards or for­ward? On­ly go back if it is good and can be re­peat­ed. But if it is bad, you must move for­ward and do it dif­fer­ent­ly.”

He urged his lis­ten­ers to em­brace change—to see their ex­pe­ri­ences as lessons, shap­ing their ac­tions and de­ci­sions.

“Every wise per­son knows that ex­pe­ri­ence is their best teacher. If you want the same re­sults, do it the same way. But if you want dif­fer­ent re­sults, then you must do things dif­fer­ent­ly.”

He stressed that fail­ure to change leads to dis­ap­point­ment, where­as change fos­ters hope.

“If we con­tin­ue as we are, we will dis­ap­point. But if we choose dif­fer­ent­ly, we will bring about hope. We are called to be peo­ple of hope, not of dis­ap­point­ment. If each of us be­comes a bea­con of hope, we can change the world.”

Khan spoke of ac­cept­ing bur­dens, com­par­ing them to Christ’s cross, say­ing, “By em­brac­ing our cross­es, by choos­ing not to dis­ap­point, and by be­ing pil­grims of hope, we will trans­form the world.”

Ear­li­er, while much of down­town San Fer­nan­do re­mained qui­et, with on­ly a few taxi dri­vers and pedes­tri­ans nav­i­gat­ing its ear­ly morn­ing still­ness, a sea of red surged through the streets.

Dozens of Ro­man Catholic dis­ci­ples par­tic­i­pat­ed in the an­nu­al Sta­tions of the Cross, ho­n­our­ing Je­sus Christ’s ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice with solemn prayers and un­wa­ver­ing faith.

The Sta­tions of the Cross, a pro­found Catholic tra­di­tion, com­mem­o­rates Je­sus Christ’s jour­ney to His cru­ci­fix­ion through 14 de­vo­tion­al steps. As an act of re­flec­tion and rev­er­ence, be­liev­ers walk in His foot­steps, paus­ing at each sta­tion to med­i­tate on His suf­fer­ing—be­gin­ning with His con­dem­na­tion and cul­mi­nat­ing in His bur­ial.

The young and able had gath­ered be­fore dawn at the Cluny Eu­charis­tic Cen­tre on Mt Mo­ri­ah Road, stand­ing in qui­et an­tic­i­pa­tion as the first light touched the city.

Fr Khan led the way, be­gin­ning with prayer be­fore the acolytes and cler­gy set the pro­ces­sion in­to mo­tion. Car­ry­ing cross­es, they wound through San Fer­nan­do’s streets, stop­ping at each sta­tion for scrip­ture read­ings and hymns. The echoes of voic­es raised in de­vo­tion cre­at­ed a pow­er­ful and mov­ing at­mos­phere.