Anglican priest prays for children to be safe from crime

Too many young people in TT follow the wrong company, gravitating towards a life of crime, Anglican priest Reverend Mark Hakim said on Saturday.

“They look for role models in these notorious characters that are known to commit crime,” Hakim said in his sermon during the Holy Innocents service, St Paul's Anglican Church, San Fernando.

Evil focuses its attack on the weak, with youths and children, Hakim said, falling into this bracket. "I urge you to teach your children how to pray and how to become spiritually strong," he said.

Hakim warned the youths in the congregation to choose their friends wisely as they can be easily seduced to a life of social and moral evil.

“The company one keeps is very important as there is the element of peer pressure and once pressured you can lose your focus in life,” he said.

Hakim said it should be considered child abuse when a parent does not take a child to church. Parents must be held accountable, he said, for their children and for their families. “Family is a foundation of unity and one can determine how a family fair in life by the way they pray,” he said.

He urged children to obey their parents and teachers and most of all communicate with God.

Reverend Wayne Maughan blessed the toys the children received for Christmas, a practice which the Anglican Church continues. He called on the children to kneel before a statue of Jesus Christ as he sprinkled holy water on them. He asked God that as the children play, to prepare them for their life ahead. Maughan called on the congregation to pray for the protection of children from evil as they grow and become adults.