To­mor­row’s Gospel read­ing (John 13:31-35) sends an im­por­tant mes­sage to us in T&T and to those around the world who con­tin­ue to beat the drums of ha­tred and war; to those who sit on the side­lines and ig­nore the plight of those who suf­fer from pover­ty, hunger, crime and vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing, bro­ken im­mi­gra­tion sys­tems, mod­ern slav­ery, and the many in­equal­i­ties/in­equities/in­jus­tices that plague hu­man­i­ty. Self­ish­ness, in­di­vid­u­al­ism and trib­al­ism are lead­ing us down the wrong road.

Je­sus said to his dis­ci­ples: “I give you a new com­mand­ment, that you love one an­oth­er. Just as I have loved you, you al­so should love one an­oth­er. By this every­one will know that you are my dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one an­oth­er” (John 13:31-35).

Pope Fran­cis said: “Love ...is the Chris­t­ian’s iden­ti­ty card, the on­ly valid “doc­u­ment” iden­ti­fy­ing us as Chris­tians ... If this card ex­pires and is not con­stant­ly re­newed, we stop be­ing wit­ness­es of the Mas­ter ... The true friends of Je­sus stand out es­sen­tial­ly by gen­uine love; not some “pie in the sky” love; no, it is a gen­uine love that shines forth in their way of life. Love is al­ways shown in re­al ac­tions...love is a free gift which calls for an open heart; love is a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, but a no­ble re­spon­si­bil­i­ty which is life-long; it is a dai­ly task.

“Love is nur­tured by trust, re­spect and for­give­ness. Love does not hap­pen be­cause we talk about it, but when we live it: it is not a sweet po­em to study and mem­o­rise, but is a life choice to put in­to prac­tice! ...The Lord, if you lis­ten to his voice, will re­veal to you the se­cret of love. It is car­ing for oth­ers, re­spect­ing them, pro­tect­ing them and wait­ing for them. This is putting ten­der­ness and love in­to ac­tion.”

The para­ble of the Good Samar­i­tan (Lk 10:25–37) is an ex­cel­lent ex­am­ple of love in ac­tion. Do we love each oth­er in T&T? Al­though our Gen­er­al Elec­tion took place on April 28, some cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to use so­cial me­dia to ped­dle mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion, and to abuse, ha­rass and in­tim­i­date in­di­vid­u­als and po­lit­i­cal par­ties that they do not sup­port.

Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies have changed the way cit­i­zens en­gage in pol­i­tics eg be­fore and dur­ing elec­tion cam­paigns, and even af­ter elec­tions. De­spite the tox­ic dig­i­tal cul­ture, there are ex­am­ples of so­cial me­dia be­ing used pos­i­tive­ly to en­hance democ­ra­cy and po­lit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Re­cent­ly, I read in the UK Hansard the con­tri­bu­tions by var­i­ous MPs dur­ing a Par­lia­men­tary de­bate that con­sid­ered the im­pact of dig­i­tal plat­forms on UK democ­ra­cy (Vol­ume 765: de­bat­ed on Thurs­day April 3, 2025). North­ern Ire­land MP, Sor­cha East­wood, re­mind­ed MPs that, “To­day’s dig­i­tal age presents a new, un­par­al­leled threat to our democ­ra­cy. So­cial me­dia is not with­out its ben­e­fits. It al­lows us to con­nect with con­stituents and pro­mote caus­es ... It has be­come one of the few ways that young peo­ple en­gage with pol­i­tics, and it has played a piv­otal role in pro­mot­ing grass­roots ac­tivism and greater trans­paren­cy. How­ev­er, we now face a na­tion­al emer­gency of mis­in­for­ma­tion and dig­i­tal vi­o­lence. Fam­i­lies, teach­ers and even young peo­ple them­selves are cry­ing out for an over­haul.”

So­cial me­dia com­pa­nies should be re­spond­ing quick­ly and proac­tive­ly to iden­ti­fy and re­move e.g. il­le­gal con­tent, abuse - in­clud­ing on­line abuse/ex­ploita­tion of chil­dren. On­line groom­ing, fi­nan­cial sex­u­al ex­tor­tion and live stream­ing of child abuse is on the rise.

Users al­so have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­port il­le­gal/in­ap­pro­pri­ate posts. Faith com­mu­ni­ties/NGOs/schools/uni­ver­si­ties etc must do more to de­vel­op par­ents’/car­ers’ aware­ness of ways in which they can en­sure that their own chil­dren use the In­ter­net safe­ly. On­line bul­ly­ing, child sex­u­al abuse, sex­u­al groom­ing, traf­fick­ing etc, con­tin­ue to threat­en the life chances of chil­dren and young adults. Gov­ern­ments have a du­ty eg to in­tro­duce/strength­en laws to pro­tect cit­i­zens and to col­lab­o­rate with or­gan­i­sa­tions to de­vel­op poli­cies and col­lab­o­ra­tive so­lu­tions.

Love can trans­form our lives and our na­tion. Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don has said that God is love but Chris­tians have failed to ful­fil God’s com­mand­ment to love: “If we had lived up to the com­mand­ment of love, our coun­try could not be in the state that it is rid­dled in right now...we could not have as many home­less peo­ple on the streets right now...we couldn’t have as many peo­ple in des­ti­tu­tion and in tra­vail in our na­tion as we have now. If we would have lived up to the com­mand­ment of love, broth­ers and sis­ters, this whole na­tion and our fam­i­lies and our church would be dif­fer­ent.”

Let’s open our hearts and love un­con­di­tion­al­ly.