Tenia: Families need to be strengthened for 2018

Interim rector and dean of the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the Very Reverend Shelley-Ann Tenia, said there was a need to strengthen families ideally and realistically for 2018.

Tenia said this on Sunday night as she delivered her last sermon for 2017 at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Port of Spain.

She said families were the core unit of what built up any cultural society, and TT had grown from thinking of a family as a father, a mother and a few children. She added if families were not strong enough, society would not be strong.

“Family is about a network of connections and Christ, whom we serve and whose name we lift high, was born into a family. And it is that family that nurtured him into adulthood that facilitated his growing in faith in such a way to the fulfilment of his purpose and that family was not just Mary and Joseph.

It was Jesus’ brothers and sisters, members of his community. So it starts with a small unit but extends outwards.”

She said although there was a breakdown in family lives over time for a variety of reasons, if the connections were not strong all would fall down.

“I don’t think blaming and shaming people is really helpful because people are doing the best that they can with the little they have where they are.”

She said she hoped TT would pay more attention to supporting and strengthening families of all configurations.

“We have some watch words that we don’t necessarily live by,” Tenia added. “We talk it but we don’t live it. And if we are a little bit more intentional about how we do things, not living in the extremes but really being mindful and recognising that even in a recession, in difficult economic times, we have enough to meet everyone’s needs. ”

Tenia said people could not live for themselves, and the only way to dispelled greed and to deal with the breakdown in family lives, was if each person became more disciplined and mindful.