REGENERATING THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUES OF OUR SOCIETY

By Vernon Khelawan

Archbishop Joseph Harris must have been thinking about the Third Pastoral Priority when he wrote his Independence Day Message, because so much of it is related to the loss of values and standards and our estrangement from God. He warned of our “going down the slippery slope to anarchy and confusion”.

The archbishop urged his Catholic flock, as well as non-Catholics, to re-dedicate themselves to the universal values. He called each one to “respect the supremacy of God”, “do unto others as we would have them do unto us”, “seek the truth always”, “respect and care for others”, live with humility and by the principle that “it is better to give than to receive.”

These values and their attendant spinoffs are exactly what the Pastoral Priority – Regenerating the Moral and Spiritual Values of Our Society – calls for, a task which the Archbishop himself knows is not an easy one.

He asked in his message for all to recommit themselves to living these values by teaching them to our children, which means that greater attention has to be paid to proper parenting, leading by word and example and improving family life.

Many of the Priority plans which parishes, church groups, ministries and religious communities submitted touched on the importance of family life.

Archbishop Harris took the opportunity to address the obvious drift away from God and the clinging to the gods of money and power, and of comfort and pleasure – the very things that have caused the dilution of our social values.

The archbishop’s message calls us all to examine the values by which we live and to avoid paying such homage to these gods, to seriously deliberate on that Bible verse which asks rhetorically, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul?”

As he stated, let us allow God to look upon this land and say “Indeed this is very good.”