Regenerating the Moral and Spiritual Values of our Society

REGENERATING THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUES OF OUR SOCIETY

By Vernon Khelawan

In his homily a few Sundays ago – the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord, Fr Ferdinand Warner OP placed the responsibility of defining the Third Pastoral Priority, “Regenerating the Moral and Spiritual Values of our Society”, squarely in the domain of the family.

He said, “The home is the first Church,” and added, “The home should be a school of faith.” His statements should resonate loudly, not only throughout the Roman Catholic community, but the entire nation, as the struggle continues to come to grips with our declining values and lack of respect.

In a direct message to the nation’s fathers – and I suspect especially to the thousands of ‘deadbeat’ fathers now roaming the land, he repeated the baptismal blessing prayer over the father:

“May God bless the fathers of these children

With their wives they will be the first teachers

of their children in the ways of faith.

May they also be the best of teachers

bearing witness to the faith by what they say and do.”

To underscore the importance of a good home life, where both mother and father carry out their parental responsibilities in a manner pleasing to Jesus Christ, Fr Warner referred to the Catechism which states in 2225:

“Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are called to be the first heralds for their children. They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the Church. A wholesome family life can foster interior dispositions that are a genuine preparation for a living faith and remain a support for it throughout one’s life.”

What percentage of this nation’s fathers adheres to the principles in the two quotations above? We read the newspapers daily and listen to the nightly news and realise that this society of ours resides so far away from these tenets that the job of regenerating the moral and spiritual values in our society, to make it a healthier and better one, is a humongous task, which requires a lot more than the lip service it is now given at all levels of the society.

May we vigorously pursue and support all efforts to build a better Trinidad and Tobago, a nation which we can proudly acclaim as a true paradise.

REGENERATING THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUES OF OUR SOCIETY

We can make all sorts of grandiose pledges in support of the Third Pastoral Priority – Regenerating the Moral and Spiritual Values of our Society – but at the end of the day, such a task has to begin in the home, with the family.

Family life cannot improve if the nation’s families stick to the old maxim “Do as I say, but not as I do.” To a large extent this is exactly what happens in many families. How many parents ensure that the children attend Holy Mass on the weekend, while they themselves remain at home to look at sports on the television, go to the beach or just simply laze around the house?

There are two major obstacles in getting the values of this Priority to be properly understood, at least by our Roman Catholic families. One is the single parent syndrome (in the majority of instances it really means single mothers). There are so many relationships where the father is missing in action for lengthy periods, if not forever. Then there is that phenomenon of modern living where the technology encourages “doing their own ting” from an early age so no one has time for the other. Everybody is just too busy.

Of course, there is the other challenge of the inordinate length of time it takes to get to and from work, which has reached the point where primary school pupils are being awakened at a ridiculous hour in the morning, skipping breakfast and sleeping in the car all the way to school. This has a telling, if not traumatic effect on our young people. But that is life in our Trinidad and Tobago today.

So this uphill task of regenerating our society’s moral and spiritual values will not be easy, especially since the degeneration began at least two generations ago. One only has to listen to today’s sad stories where child abuse (sexual and otherwise) is being uncovered daily. Respect for people, property and the law has been effectively thrown out the window, starting at home. Manners and values are no longer taught in the home; that is now left to the television, the radio and society itself.

I was driving out of Camsel’s parking lot recently and three schoolgirls, the eldest being no more than 10, were walking through the area, blocking almost the entire driveway. I was forced to slow down and as I passed, the eldest shouted, “You buy your licence or what?”

By Vernon Khelawan