SJC POS, Holy Name students lunch with Archbishop

By Celeste Pereira, St Joseph’s Convent POS

Archbishop Jason Gordon invited five senior students each of St Joseph’s Convent POS and Holy Name Convent to have lunch with him at the Archbishop’s House on May 11.

When the invitation was extended, there was no indicated purpose of the lunch and so when we arrived we did not know what to expect. Some of us were even nervous.

On arrival, we were greeted with a great spirit of hospitality as well as fruit, chocolates and a variety of drinks. While waiting for the archbishop to come out for lunch, the students of both schools familiarised themselves and in no time were comfortable with each other especially as some knew each other from primary school as well as confirmation.

When Archbishop Gordon arrived he greeted us with warm hugs and made it quite easy to feel comfortable with him, which flushed our nervousness down the drain!

After helping ourselves to our lunch, we sat around the dining table to eat and the floor was opened to just ask any questions that we, as the youth of the Catholic Church, had about our faith.

This gave way to a very open discussion about the faith with topics such as pre-marital sex, homosexuality, the importance of the Mass, as well as atheism.

The archbishop expressed to us that he indeed understood that many Catholic youth feel looked down upon and voiceless, resulting in some simply wanting to get up and leave the Church.

This lunch gave us an opportunity to express our concerns, share our views on our faith as well as learn an awful lot from this “godly figurehead, the leader of our T&T Church” while sharing a meal just as Jesus did.

We think it was a great initiative to reach out to the youth in hope that they may spread the word in their communities as well as shed some light with their peers who may be thinking about turning their backs on the Church.

It is definitely very difficult to find young Catholics who do not judge/disagree with the Church’s teachings and are not negatively influenced by modern ideas. We were really appreciative of the opportunity and it was a great experience getting to meet new people and being able to spend first-class quality time with the archbishop himself, who we all found to be delightful with a great sense of humour!

Apart from the lunch and the dessert being tasty (especially the dessert) it was really nice to have a back and forth conversation with someone of his calibre in the archdiocese.

We do hope that this will continue for other schools and that step by step the Catholic youth will join the movement to revive our faith, live by it, and spread the word as the disciples did.