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Saint Lucia

	August & September 2004 47th Year Nos. 8 & 9 Internet Edition Page 4 Click below for Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 5 Home

First Week of Camp 2004
by Zena Alcide

I find that this was magnificent. We were taught and
given information on the following topics: Abortion, the seven[7] Sacraments, Music, Contraception, Masturbation, Homo-Sexuality and many more interesting topics too numerous to mention. We saw two movies ‘Hard Truth’ [how an abortion is performed ].and the Wonders of Life.(development of a baby from the womb). It was not easy to watch Hard Truth. We had lots of fun with the Trinidadians. We went to the Piton /falls [we bathed there], Jerusalem Falls, Toreille Falls and the Sulphur Springs. This one week workshop was very educational, interesting and exciting. If I did not attendthis workshop and someone was telling me aout it I owuld regret it. We ended the week on Friday 30th July with a terrific, fabulous, fantastic, glorious, marvellous, outstanding, stupendous and exquisite concert with the people of the Praise Community from Trinidad & Tobago. The participants of the summer camp took part in either Sign Language and Song and Dance, those too were very impressive. I must say that this workshop was one of the best I have ever attended.

We have received many blessings from the camp since it started on 26th July. The initiative was to get young people to teach them more about their Catholic Faith. We met the Trinidadian counterparts ranging from young to old. They were responsible for teaching us aspects of various topics such as, sexuality, abortion, music and sign language drug addiction, elements of the Mass.

The topic that interested me the most was the Elements of the Mass Thee was also a field trip to Soufriere, it was very exciting, we visited the Sulphur Springs, Jerusalem Falls and Piton Falls, I also looked forward to next weekthe following week’s presentation where we were in a different location. The St. Joseph’s Convent Secondary School.

Camp Blessings
By Asha Auguste

The Cathedral parish organized a summer camp for the youth of the parish. This venture was made a reality with the help of The People of Praise Community of Trinidad and Tobago. The camp was scheduled in two parts for the duration of one week each. The first part was held at the Parish Centre during the week of July 26 to July 30, 2004. In attendance were approximately 80 young people from ages 4 to 16 years from various parishes.

A typical day began with prayer, praise and worship followed by discussions on various topics such as maintaining healthy relationships, for the older children, and developing a positive self esteem, for the younger children. The afternoon’s sessions basically contained various workshops including drama, dance, art and craft. In addition, there were outdoor sessions such as a trip to the northern part of the island, and a visit to Soufriere all in an effort to capture the attention span of the energetic young people in attendance.

Based on the participants’ enthusiastic and excitable attitude towards the camp, one can conclude that there was an obvious need for such a program in the Church, to direct the energies of young people in a more positive and structured way. It is my opinion that the camp was a good setting for nurturing young Catholics to assume their role as the future leaders of the church. The camp provides an avenue for relationship building and bonding, and an opportunity to encourage children to know and understand their faith and to be better equipped to defend it.

The second week of the camp scheduled for August 3 - August 6, 2004 will be held at the St. Joseph’s Convent. The youth will be given an opportunity to observe the School of Liturgy in session. Activities at their level will be planned to help them better understand the catholic doctrine.

The organizers should be commended for their initiative and effort in this venture.

The World of the Religious Imagination: CSCC 2004

The annual Caribbean School for Catholic
Communications (CSCC) was held at the Emmaus Retreat Centre, Arima, Trinidad, 8-14 August. 2004 marked the 10th anniversary of the school. There were 10 facilitators and 52 participants from several Caribbean territories including Barbados, Grenada, Dominica, Antigua, St. Croix, St. Thomas, with the vast majority coming from the host country Trinidad & Tobago. The tenth anniversary year heralded the commencement of a three-year cycle in which the school will look at the theme Communications and the Religious Imagination. The sub-theme for 2004 was “Creating A Culture of Peace.”

The school sessions comprised feature presentations in the morning and workshops in the afternoons. The feature presenters this year were Trinidadian artist Jackie Hinkson, Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski of the University of Dayton, Ohio, and Msgr. Patrick Anthony, director of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre, St. Lucia.

Jackie Hinkson’s presentation was a discourse on his extraordinary collection of life-size paintings of scene from the life of Jesus inculturated in the Trinidad context. It was a remarkable experience listening to the artist as he explained the meaning of some fourteen pieces with such titles as “Mayaro Calling” (the calling of Peter and the sons of Zebedee), “Caura Baptism” (Jesus baptized by John the Baptist), “Laperouse Rising” ( the resurrection)or “Kentucky Surprise” (the Risen Lord walking into a Trinidad KFC outlet). Msgr. Anthony’s sessions included two power-point presentations on St. Lucian artist, Dunstan St. Omer, the premier Catholic church muralist of the Caribbean and a third on the organometrix style and theory of the young St. Lucian artist, Cedric George.

Sr. Angela Zukowski focused on creating media teams.
This year’s workshops included Media Education by Fr. Jason Gordon, Journalism by Joannah Bharose, Radio by Lisa Bhajan, Video by Gitlin Aleong, Creating parish media teams by Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski.

CSCC 2004 was followed by a meeting of Caribbean Catholic Communicators, facilitated by SIGNIS and OCLACC.

Regional Association of Catholic Communicators formed

Practitioners in the field of Catholic Communications from several countries of the Caribbean region and Latin America, together with representatives from the international Catholic communications body, SIGNIS and the Latin American Catholic organization, OCLACC, met in Trinidad from 16th - 17th August, 2004.

Arising out of the meeting, the practitioners agreed to form a regional Communications Organization open to membership from countries that belong to the Caribbean Catholic Bishops’ Conference (AEC) as well as other countries in the region that wish to participate in this initiative. They also agreed to set up the necessary mechanism to exchange information, ideas, resources and media productions among members. Sub committees were formed to develop a Constitution for the organization, to communicate with the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC), to facilitate the communications process between the member countries and to plan and fund the agreed activities including the first meeting of the new organization which will be held in May 2005.

Participating countries and organizations at the meeting included Antigua, Barbados, Belize, Curacao, Dominica, Guyana, Santa Domingo, St. Lucia, Suriname, St. Thomas and Trinidad and Tobago. SIGNIS, the official international Catholic organization responsible for communications and OCLACC, the Catholic Communications Organization for Latin America, facilitated the two day meeting and provided valuable insights to participants.

Sacred Heart Rally - Micoud

After months of planning the day had finally arrived. I woke up and looked outside to see indications as to what the weather would be like for the day. The weather announcements the night before predicted thunder storms and showers for the 18th July. The weather was slightly overcast with a few clouds but the thunder storms and showers predicted did not seem likely. I made all necessary preparations and headed for the Sir Derek Walcott square which was the agreed rendezvous for the pilgrims from the Cathedral.

I arrived there at 7:00 a. m. and observed that many of the members were already there in their spotless white outfits and red ribbons. It was clear that the pilgrims were very excited and rain and thunder storms were not included in their vocabulary for the day. For some unknown reason the transportation had not yet arrived and the members were getting very nervous. Numerous telephone calls were made by the President Telita Samuel and eventually the two vehicles originally hired arrived. Despite the excitement, boarding the buses was done in a rather orderly manner and we were able to leave Castries at 7:30 a. m. We were also joined by another bus from the Marchand parish.

We arrived in Micoud about 8:45 a. m. and went to the allocated parking lot for the arriving pilgrims. We observed that a number of other vehicles from various parishes around the island had arrived and some were still coming in. The pilgrims were the centre of attraction as the people of Micoud came out in large numbers to see what was happening in their community. The St. Lucy’s Church yard was a hive of activity with members looking for old friends from past rallies as well as visiting other relatives and friends close by. While all this was going on, church service was in progress so we had some time to refresh ourselves and make use of the premises earmarked for us for the day, to secure our belongings in preparation for the commencement of proceedings. The normal service ended at 9:22 a. m. and our host confraternity began setting up the various parishes in alphabetical order for us to commence our procession through the town. Micoud as host, was to lead the procession.

At 9:40 we began our procession through the streets as originally planned while singing numerous hymns such as ‘To Jesus Heart all burning’, ‘Sweet Heart of Jesus’ to name a few. As we went through the streets, the people positioned themselves at strategic positions to ensure that they missed nothing. We were very pleased by their efforts and went all out to ensure that by the end of proceedings we would have influenced enough of them to become members of the Sacred Heart Confraternity. At this juncture, it was to be noted that the weather did not deteriorate as was feared earlier but rather improved and remained that way until we ended the rally for return to our various parishes. The route for the procession was well mapped out and the police ensured that there were no mishaps while on route as well as provide security during the entire day of activities. We arrived in St. Lucy’s Church at 10:00 a. m. where we commenced the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Fathers Ed and Jesse officiated with Mr. Biscette as animator. I should mention here, that the Micoud Church Choir and Band out did themselves throughout and ensured a most successful Eucharistic Celebration for which we were all grateful.

The homily was centered on three significant readings for the day were as follows: (a) Genesis 18:1 -10. (b) the letter of St. Paul to the Colossians 1 :24 - 28 and (c) The gospel according to Luke 10:38-42. Father Ed pointed out that love was the centre of the Heart of Jesus and that our lives were rooted in Christ. Every image of the Sacred Heart shows His Heart burning with love for us. He reminded the congregation that without love there could be no peace. He further reminded us that it was our duty to go out and bring Christ’s love to others. He continued by saying that we had to attend to our day to day activities in order to survive but we were not to ignore or forget to work on our spiritual development, as this came first in the eyes of Jesus. He used the example of when Jesus chastised Martha for her concern for things that were not really necessary and informed her that Mary had chosen what was most important. He concluded by reminding us that Jesus promised to be with us until the end of time.

When the homily ended three new members were installed as members of the Sacred Heart confraternity. They were Mary Joseph of Bexon, Mary Abraham and Annette John of Babonneau.

It was quite a sight when the pilgrims in a most orderly fashion went to receive the Holy eucharist. It was a sea of white and red and the Church was filled to capacity. I personally felt quite moved by the experience and I have no doubt that all the others felt that way as well. I believe that Jesus himself service ended at noon and right on schedule.

We proceeded to lunch and enjoyed the meals and other domestic arrangements organized by the various committees. At this point it would be remiss of me not to mention Mrs. Annette Biscette who was overall coordinator for the Micoud community from the planning stages to the successful completion of the rally. Her efforts and those of the various committees and sub committees were outstanding. This rally was acclaimed to be probably the best we have had in a long time. Fathers Jesse and Ed also played their parts despite their very rigorous schedules to ensure its success. At the end of the lunch period there was not one discontented face but rather smiles of appreciation for a job well done.

At 1 :45 p.m. phase two of the activities began. This was the usual sing along to ensure that participants were wide awake after an excellent meal and to prepare pilgrims for the guest speaker. This took the form of a medley of songs which kept all on their toes. The participation was commendable.

At 2:30 p. m. the guest speaker Father Theophilus Joseph addressed the pilgrims in his usual inimitable style. He started by pointing out to us that our spiritual development was of paramount importance and used the example of Martha complaining to Jesus of the lack of assistance from Mary in entertaining their guest. Jesus told Martha that she was worrying about things that were not necessary while Mary chose the better part which was listening to his words for her spiritual development. He said that like Martha, there were many people who allowed insignificant things to prevent them from getting closer to God. He was of the view that a certain amount of hospitality was in order. He alluded to when Abraham was visited by the Lord and his two angels at the Oak of Mamre. This was necessary to bring people closer to God. He explained some of the practices of the east in terms of how women were treated and showed that Jesus revolutionized this by dealing directly with women like St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and showed her his heart burning with love for mankind. In doing this He proclaimed her a disciple to spread his words to everyone.

He continued by admonishing us to be true devotees of the Sacred Heart. He said that a true devotee could recognized by the following:

1. A true love for Jesus Christ and His Heart. That love must come from the heart;

2. We must love Jesus more than anything else in the world and we can demonstrate this by taking up our crosses daily and following him.

3. A special respect and veneration of the Blessed Sacrament. Many people treat the Blessed Sacrament with contempt and so we must make reparations for the neglect, insults etc., to the Blessed Sacrament.

He expressed much concern about persons using the Church as a talk shop rather than a place to communicate in silence with our God and feel His Glory.

He explained the twelve promises of the Sacred Heart to members in a manner that added new meaning and insight to these promises.

He concluded by, explaining Satan’s continuing efforts to destroy mankind by destroying family life in order to create more misery and problems in the world and admonished us to pray and love each other because without this love Satan would find it easier to create chaos and confusion in our lives.

Brother Benignus Henry was invited to give the vote of thanks on behalf of the pilgrims. After it was done Fr. Theo departed.

There was a half hour of meditation and benediction and then the attendance of pilgrims was regularized. There were 415 members from the various parishes as follows:
Micoud 35. Marchand 28
La Clery 7 St. Benedict 25
Gros Islet 18 Babonneau 16
Bexon 14 La Ressource 30
Dennery 11 Mon Repos 36 Desruisseaux 10 Vieux Fort 25
Augier 10 Laborie 20 Choiseul 23 Soufriere 15
Jacmel 11, Castries 81

After the count of members by the President of the Sacred Heart Telita Samuel, members took a decision that Gros Islet would be the next venue for the rally in 2005 because it would be celebrating 150 years of the establishment of the Sacred Heart in that parish and so it was most fitting that it be given the choice. She also gave a short report on the progress made regarding the travel of the pilgrims of St. Lucia to Dominica in August this year. This having been done, the Rally ended and members began to board their transports to return to their parishes spirit filled by 4:00 p.m.

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