RETURN TO CIVILITY

Even as Jesus of Nazareth prayed for universal salvation during his torturous final hours in the garden of Gethsamene, Roman Catholic Priest, Father Clyde Harvey offered sombre prayers for the nation’s dedicated police officers, strengthening of the believers, and for an end to the almost daily carnage on the nation’s roadways. Father Harvey was addressing hundreds of believers during the annual Good Friday pilgrimage up San Fernando Hill, yesterday. Leading the faithful along the different stations of the Cross, Father Harvey, the parish priest of the Our Lady of Perputal Help RC Church, also called for a return to civility and modest dress during congregrational services.

Under a clear blue sky, with an outcropping of rock pointing towards the heavens, he observed that the passion of the Christ was an experience to be lived and not only seen. “We must not only see The Passion, but we must also live the passion of the Christ,” he said. And, in praying for various sectors of society, Father Harvey asked for strength for those police officers who were blocked from the performance of their duties by certain ‘high-level’ persons. “We pray for those police officers who know what is going on in certain top levels of society and must carry the burden of this knowledge as their cross,” he said.

He also prayed for an end to the ever-increasing number of road fatalities, saying safety must become the national watchword on the nation’s highways. In offering special prayers for the Church, Father Harvey called for an outpouring of God’s grace on those believers who, in spite of a “Church that shows its weaknesses,” bore the cross of Christ with grace and dignity. In his Good Friday discourse, he appealed to believers to adopt the watchwords of “civility” and “clothes” as a return towards national morality “Simple words like ‘thank you’, ‘please,’ and ‘sorry’ must become part of our conversation again,” he said, adding that parents had a responsibility to teach these almost forgotten words to the younger generation. “We could change this country for better, not for worse, if we remember civility and clothes,” he concluded.