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Archbishop Edward Gilbert cuts the ribbon,
formally opening Mercy Home.
Years of prayer and planning finally came to fruition Thursday, April 6,
2006 as Living Water Community (LWC) opened their newest ministry: Mercy
Home, a hospice for persons living with AIDS.
Archbishop Edward Gilbert formally opened the hospice, expressing “joy” at
being able to celebrate the Community's “outreach in the Church and the
nation, in the name of the Catholic Church”.
“It is a great ad for the authenticity of the Church and Catholic
spirituality!” he declared. “People who get involved in service usually turn
in on themselves, which is a great mistake; a great mistake which Living
Water has never made.”
Just over 50 persons gathered for the celebration, which began with Holy
Mass. Three of LWC's priests, Msgr Michael de Verteuil, (main celebrant), Fr
Jason Gordon and Fr Roger Paponette, celebrated.
In
his homily, Msgr de Verteuil said that Mercy Home, “would be a place where
God would reach out, through all those who minister here, to those in need
of mercy.”
To
prepare for this ministry, LWC worked closely with the Ministry of Health,
the National AIDS Co-ordinating Committee and the Medical Research
Foundation of T&T (MRF).
As
a hospice, the ten-bed home will provide professional medical and palliative
care; as a ministry, Mercy Home will provide a highway to heaven.
“It is an opportunity to
celebrate life as we prepare our brothers and sisters for
eternal
life,” said LWC founder and leader, Rhonda Maingot. “This is
a wonderful gift, to prepare someone for the eternal kingdom!”
One of the ways to do that is to provide an environment that nurses patients
back to spiritual, as well as physical, health.
“To the patients and people God will send, we must be life-givers,” said
Mercy Home co-coordinator, Betty de Souza.
“We have to welcome them, give them warmth; we have to let them know how
special, how very precious they are.”
Historically, the Church has always cared for the terminally ill,
particularly those whose diseases carried negative social stigmas, a fact to
which MRF director, Professor Courtenay Bartholomew, alluded.
During the 1920s and 30s, Dominican sisters ministered bravely to the lepers
in Trinidad , he said, “because doctors didn't want to risk infection”.
“Leprosy was feared in those days and it had a stigma,” he declared. “The
lepers of those days are as the AIDS sufferers of today. Mother Theresa
cared for AIDS sufferers in India , and ‘Mother Rhonda' is doing the same in
Trinidad !”
The Church continues to minister to AIDS sufferers today, according to
statistics from the Vatican 's Justice and Peace Commission. Citing this
study, Archbishop Gilbert said that, “throughout the world, 50 percent of
the hospitals, medical centres and hospices for AIDS care are run by the
Catholic Church.”
It
was important for the Community to let people know what ministries are
offered, he said.
“You don't advertise out of pride,” he said, “but PR is a very important
contemporary ministry. Let people know what the Church is doing!” he added,
stressing that this was important “having the Church be credible to the
nation.
“I'm proud of what you do continually,” the Archbishop
concluded. “I'm waiting for the next call to bless something you've done for
the benefit of the Church and the service of the nation!” (by
Laura Ann Phillips)
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