Catholic Commission for Social Justice
These days our Scriptural readings are just “jumping” out of the pages to speak to us. Let’s take heed of the message in today’s Gospel reading (Mk 10:35-45).
In the Gospel reading on September 23 (Mark 9:30-37) the disciples were arguing among themselves as they journeyed with Jesus through Galilee toCapernaum. They were arguing about which of them was the greatest.
With the launch of the Year of Faith on Thursday, October 11, CCSJ encourages the Faithful to keep your eyes on Christ as we journey through the year. There are many things that can distract us and keep us from focusing on Him. For example, last Saturday when we launched Respect for Life Week (RFLW), I thought I would not be able to moderate the Sir Ellis Clarke Memorial Conference as I had had a tooth extracted and somehow the dentist pulled out a piece of my bone also!
“Social change begins in the human heart… there will be no social justice if you do not touch and help the conversion of hearts… the first task of evangelization of the Church is the conversion of the heart. We need to help the Christian life to be part of everyday life.” Bishop Martin Kay Schmalhausen SCV, Bishop of the Prelature of Ayaviri, Peru. He was interviewed recently for a TV programme: Where God Weeps.
On Friday, Sept 21, CCSJ’s Parish Link Coordinator, Christine Walcott, and I attended a seminar entitled: “Strengthening the Inter-American Human Rights System” (IAHRS). It was held at the Institute of International Relations, UWI.
In addressing the relevance and challenges of the IAHRS for the Caribbean, one of the speakers said, inter alia: “We are confronting evolving social norms. We still have Christian social norms in the Caribbean. These are being abandoned in the West…Given the conflicting views, should our laws/legal system be more secular? Should we decriminalise sodomy?
Tomorrow, September 24,Trinidad and Tobagowill mark the day when we became a Republic (August 1, 1976). We gained our Independence in 1962 and our Republican status in 1976.
We are supposed to be paddling our own canoe, as the saying goes, heading in a direction that will transform our society into one in which all ethnic/religious communities will have an equal place and will live in harmony with each other; where love of God and of neighbour and love of all God’s creation is evident in the thoughts, words and actions of citizens; where justice and peace reigns.