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Homily
by Archbishop Gilbert
at Mass of Installation
(Excerpts
on Audio)
Your Excellency Mrs Patricia
Robinson and Miss Margaret Robinson; the Hon Prime Minister & Mrs Oma
Panday; the Hon Chief Justice and Mrs de la Bastide; the President of the
Senate and Mrs Ramdial; Members of the Cabinet of Trinidad & Tobago;
Members of the House of Representatives; the Leader of the Opposition
& Mrs Manning; the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and the Members of the
Diplomatic Corps; the Mayor of Port of Spain Mr Brown and Mrs Brown; the
Governor of the Central Bank and Mrs Dookeran;
the Bishops of the Antilles Episcopal Conference; the representatives of
the various Parish communities; the Diocesan and Religious Clergy of the
Archdiocese; the visiting Priests, Religious Sisters and Brothers;
Seminarians; Students; Novices and aspirants; my Sisters and Brothers in
the Lord.
The time between Easter and
Pentecost is a special time in the liturgical calendar of the church.
It is the time when we reflect as a community on what being a new
creation in Christ means. The
fifty-day period is close enough to Easter so we can easily remember the
invitation of the Church to renew our baptismal promises from the heart,
not from the lips, and to do that in a communal setting.
The fifty-day period is close enough to Pentecost so we can draw
strength from the truth of our faith, that the Holy Spirit, when requested
in prayer, helps us to understand and enables us to live as the new
creation.
The Church assists us during this
fifty-day period by presenting the Acts of the Apostles for our
consideration. As you all
know, the Acts of the Apostles is the story of how the early church
understood what it meant to be a new creation in Christ and how it applied
its understanding to the challenging process of being church and of
building church. I use the word process deliberately because the
understanding the church has of itself must continually deepen and, as
that happens, the response of the church to the ever changing signs of the
times and the needs of the people should become more authentically
Christian and more authentically generous.
New Creation, Church, Holy Spirit,
Process - these four realities will form the context of this brief
reflection on my understanding of the shepherding role of a bishop. Let us
begin with a little bit of history. When
the Second Vatican Council spoke of the church, it reintroduced a rich
biblical concept called the ‘People of God’.
You have heard it two or three times already in the prayers and in
the readings. The church used
this to describe itself as the new creation. The second chapter of the
Constitution of the church, which is all about the People of God, is
filled with biblical references which show how God called, and formed, and
shaped, and journeyed with the people he intended to call his own.
The concept of the People of God embraces everyone in the church
from the newest baptized member of the church to the Holy Father, the
Vicar of Christ. In the Constitution on the church, each category of
God’s people is named and explained and related to community and then
each of those categories is given its own document.
And I am sure, many of you, since the 60s when this came out, but
it is still the most recent universal magisterial statement on these
issues for the church, I am sure that in your studies, many of you have
read at least in part these documents and they are the foundation for
spirituality and for pastoral planning.
For some, the concept of the
People of God may sound theoretical but in truth its foundational to who
we are, how we live, how we plan, how we minister.
When the theology of the people of
God is understood and chosen and implemented in process, the church is
alive, the church is Spirit filled, the church is credible, the church is
active. A Spirit-filled church shows these signs - a comfort with prayer,
a comfort with celebration, a comfort with biblical reflection, a comfort
with reflection on the teaching of the church.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a bible church only, we are an
apostolic church and therefore when we reflect we must include the
teaching of the church.
The new creation also shows signs
of interest and commitment in growing, growing as individual people and
growing as a community. These
signs provide uplifting witness within the church.
We have to remember we either build each other up or we tear each
other down. The teaching of
the Lord is to build each other up. These
signs also provide witness to the secular world, to the non-believing
world, because every religious tradition understands that many people who
are searching, many people who are making major mistakes in their lives,
are people who are really looking for God and they are people who are
looking for meaning in their lives.
When the theology of the People of
God is not understood, when it is not chosen, when it is not implemented
in process, the church becomes listless, uninspiring, maybe even dull. The
signs of life I mentioned before are absent or they are very inconsistent.
My ministry to you as shepherd
will be to facilitate growth as a community in which everyone accepts
responsibility for building community and participating in mission,
everyone.
I am and, since the 60s,
have been committed to the theological approach which flows from the
People of God as understood by the Second Vatican Council and to the
collaborative ministry that flows from that concept.
Everyone has a part to play, no one is left out.
What is the framework for this ministry?
The framework for this ministry is the message of the First
Reading, which essentially is the process of re-establishing the original
plan of God for his creation, reversing many of the things we have to live
with now on a day-to-day basis and how do we do that?
We do that by internalizing the values of the Second Reading which
calls us to be instruments of love and unity and peace in community and in
ministry. That call involves
us in a process of surrender, which gradually leads us to maturity in
Christ
I have been using the word
‘process’ so continually and deliberately because it contains the
elements of what bring people together, and what keep them together, and
what help them to grow. What
are these signs for the church? No.
1 it means listening to each other in an atmosphere of prayer.
We are not an international corporation, we are a church, therefore
what we do must always be done in the Spirit.
It means sharing our own ideas with respect.
It means reflecting on what you have heard from others in quiet and
not trying to respond, thinking about what they have said.
It means supporting each other with love, it means joining each
other with energy for mission.
As a sign of my commitment to this
process of collaborative ministry, I hereby reinstate the Council of
Priests, the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, the Archdiocesan Financial
Council, and the Archdiocesan Synod Committee. I shall begin to meet with
these bodies on Monday morning. We
shall develop our agenda together, we shall enter into patient dialogue
together, we shall develop our pastoral plan together, and we shall pursue
that pastoral plan together.
As of this Liturgy, the
Archdiocese of Port of Spain becomes my life.
In response to the questions of the Lord to Peter in the Gospel,
‘do you love me’, and when Peter said ‘yes’ the Lord said ‘feed
my people’, I assure you of my love for the Lord and of my commitment to
church, particular church, regional church, universal church.
I promise at this Liturgy to love
you and serve and collaborate with you, with the people of this
Archdiocese and the people of this Republic to the best of my ability.
I commit myself to working with the Ecumenical Committee and the
Inter-Religious Organization. Now why do I say that, because unity is the
will of God. Why do I
say that, because contributing in the name of God to the holistic quality
of life to the people of Trinidad and Tobago through ecumenical and
inter-faith ministry is the will of God.
I commit myself to support prayerfully the efforts of Government to
serve and lift up the people of Trinidad and Tobago and, if ever needed, I
assure the Government of my willingness to assist in any way.
We are the new creation, we are
the People of God missioned for ministry.
What I have outlined very briefly is my theology of shepherding, my
theology of what it means to be a bishop.
Hold me to it. I’m
on tape. I can’t deny anything I have said. Hold me to it. I
want you to understand the continuity process that is intrinsic to the
church. When Archbishop
Pantin began his ministry, he built it on the ministry of Archbishop Ryan. It is now my privilege to build on the ministry of Archbishop
Pantin.
I invite everyone in the
Archdiocese to collaborate with me in being and building church. I invite
everyone to make building church a real priority in your lives so that
with the help of the Holy Spirit and through the intercession of Mary the
mother of the church, we can begin writing a new chapter in the long and
very significant history of the Archdiocese of Port of Spain.
In the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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