Archbishop: Speak the truth against corruption

JULIEN NEAVES

ARCHBISHOP Jason Gordon said this country needs a generation of disciples who will speak the truth at all levels against corruption.

He was delivering the homily yesterday for the Good Friday mass held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Port of Spain.

He said this country needs a generation of disciples who will live as disciples and this will redeem the land. Gordon lamented that many today want a Christianity with no cross, and there are some preaching that as a Christian there is no suffering and, if there is, it is because the Christian does not love Jesus.

“That is a lie, an error, a heresy.”

He said Jesus taught that if someone wants to be his disciple they must pick up their cross and follow him. He added that while people do not go out looking for hardship if you do what is right you will suffer and be rejected.

“Because we are afraid to be rejected and suffer we are not living as disciples.”

He said there were many ways in which people have shied away from Christ for the easy way and compromised themselves.

“There is no crown without the cross. No cross — no glory. No cross — no resurrection. No cross — no light. No cross — no transforming power of God in our world.”

Gordon said many good Catholics believe Jesus was a good man but not God. He stressed that by a person’s life they make a testimony of Jesus Christ – if he is at the centre he will be king but if he is peripheral then he is not God and deserves to be crucified as a liar and impostor. He said when love comes our way we crucify it, mamaguy it and “pappy show” it. “We are not capable to receive so great a love from so generous a lover.” He said when people walk through town and ignore those in unfortunate conditions Christ is crucified again.

Gordon also referenced the destruction of two statues, the statue of St Paul and the crucifix, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception by a medical student using dumbbells during the celebration of mass on Palm Sunday; the church has declined to press charges. Yesterday two statues were covered with a purple cloth, one partially and one totally. The Archbishop said the incident with the cross taking blows is a metaphor for what is happening in the city, and every time people flinch from living what is truth they “mash up” the cross of Jesus Christ.

He said the cross has been disfigured, brutalised, mocked and scorned but he encouraged people to commit not to shun the cross of Christ but to embrace it, venerate and hold it central in their lives.