Catholic Commission for Social Justice
On Tuesday the world will observe another Valentine’s Day. Amidst the usual celebrations, take some time to reflect on what Love really means.
The greatest commandment Jesus gave us is to love one another as He loves us. Valentine’s Day is celebrated not only by couples, but by the general public to show our love for friends, family and so on.
“The Church is the salt of the earth, she is the light of the world. She is called to make present in society the leaven of the Kingdom of God and she does this primarily with her witness, the witness of brotherly love, of solidarity and of sharing with others.” (Pope Francis, 2013)
Come on people, it’s time to wake up and bear witness to our faith! We cannot afford to be a sleeping giant in the midst of all the social ills that beset us!
In last week’s Gospel, in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offered, as Pope Francis said in his 2017 Peace Message (Non-violence: A Style of Politics for Peace), a ‘manual’ for the strategy of peacemaking. The eight Beatitudes, says the Holy Father, “provide a portrait of the person we could describe as blessed, good and authentic”.
“Crime flourishes when the environment is conducive to people behaving in a certain way.” Sir Dennis Byron, President of the Caribbean Court of Justice.
Sir Dennis made this statement on June 14, 2014 at a symposium held at UWI in honour of the late Dana Saroop Seetahal SC. It was entitled: Re-engineering the Criminal Justice System (CJS). I was one of the speakers at the symposium.
“From the very beginning, Jesus associated his disciples with his own life, revealed the mystery of the Kingdom to them, and gave them a share in his mission, joy, and sufferings” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 787).
In today’s Gospel (Matt 4:12-23) we see Jesus calling His first four disciples – ordinary fishermen –two pairs of brothers: Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother, Andrew, and James and John, sons of Zebedee.
It was Maya Angelou who said: “When you know better, do better.” We say that we are Christ’s disciples, his followers, but are we allowing Him to move in our lives? We know better, that is, that He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as John the Baptist acknowledges in today’s Gospel (John 1:29-34), but does this knowledge lead us to “do better”?