Reframe ageing
January 21, 2026
Who hit the brakes?
January 21, 2026
By Fr Robert Christo
Vicar for Communications
There was a time in Trinidad and Tobago when you could literally smell a Sunday. The morning felt quieter, the breeze softer and from wooden louvre windows you heard old hymns or Jim Reeves drifting through the village air.
Pots bubbled with macaroni pie, callaloo, potato salad with (must add) beetroot, families visited the sick, and neighbours shared meals with each other without hurry.
Children knew that Sunday was different. Playtime. Sacred. Slower. Consecrated. Sunday best for Sunday evening strolls and window shopping. That was long time.
Today, every day feels like every other day. The secular calendar has swallowed the sacred one. Now, with the recent expansion of legalised Sunday gambling, the last boundary of the New Sabbath is slipping away. For Christians, Sunday became the ‘new Sabbath’ because it is the day of the Resurrection and the first day of the new creation; see Genesis 2:2–3; Acts 20:7; even referenced in the early Church Fathers’ writing, Didache as the ‘first day of the week.
From Caribbean shores to global trends
This is not only a Christian concern. It is a human one. Across the Caribbean, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Barbados have debated similar expansions. In the United States, most believe that Sunday has long lost its distinctiveness. Europe went this way years ago. Once ‘free societies’ erase the idea of a day set apart, everything becomes available all the time. Convenience becomes king. Consumption and the almighty dollar creep into every crevice of life.
Naomi Klein reminds us in No Logo that modern society colonises every inch of space with advertising and profit logic. If physical space can be colonised, can time not be colonised too?
If so, then Sunday stands as the last free territory, a borderland resisting total takeover by the market. A day decolonised from money making. A day when even the poor are not pulled further into a dream that empties pockets and fractures families.
Who bears the burden?
And here is the hard ethical question: Who bears the burden and who enjoys the benefits of increased gambling? The middle classes may casually participate, but many others, including the poor who chase elusive dreams, who feel the losses most sharply, and whose family stability is most affected. Big money always has a cost, and almost always the cost is borne by the vulnerable and the voiceless.
At our diocesan clergy meeting, Fr Stephan Alexander once challenged us not to keep our moral and geopolitical concerns locked within clerical rooms. If we feel strongly, we should write to The Catholic News/daily papers, post on social media. To create a counterculture, the Word and ethics must get ‘outside there’. Homilies and podcasts help, but public reasoning shapes societies.
A broader argument for a plural society
Still, in our interreligious landscape, a purely Christian argument is not enough. Yes, Sunday is the Christian day of worship, but the deeper argument is philosophical: human beings need a rhythm of work and rest. God rested not because He was tired but to model a pattern of life that protects our humanity.
St Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis both insist that reclaiming Sunday is not about being provocative or moralistic. It is about safeguarding human dignity in a secularist age that flattens every distinction.
When every day becomes ‘everyday’
Once, Sunday offered space for reflection, worship, silence, and family. A pastoral reflection in CN from Fr Derek Anton reminds us how many families in Trinidad struggle to attend Mass because Sunday has become just another workday. And now, another gambling day.
So perhaps the question is not whether the government can legalise Sunday gaming, but whether the nation still desires a day when our lives are not driven by profit, chance, or consumption.
Maybe the Church will not win this societal battle. Secular societies rarely retreat. But we can offer our people reasons not to gamble on Sundays: reasons rooted in faith, yes, but also in ethics, family life, communal well-being, and the protection of the poor.
What kind of society are we becoming?
If we lose Sunday entirely, we risk losing the last quiet doorway through which God, neighbour, and even our own souls can speak. Perhaps it is time to ask:
What kind of humans are we becoming ?
What kind of society are we becoming if there is no longer a day you can smell?
