Brothers and sisters in Christ,
I invite you to begin the Advent season with the words of Psalm 85: 10-11: “Near indeed is salvation for the loyal; prosperity will fill our land. Love and truth will meet. Justice and peace will kiss.”
On different occasions we pray this psalm, but during the preparation of Christmas, it always takes a new meaning: expressing a desire that becomes reality in our personal life and for all humanity.
With the first Sunday of Advent we begin a new liturgical season that we wish to celebrate at the same time as the Jubilee Year of our Diocese commemorating 60 years of its existence. We want to spend this year as a time of grace with the motto: Encounter with Christ, encounter with each other; an encounter, as the Gospel says, that always generates positive fruits of conversion and good works.
Pope Francis says so: “An encounter with Jesus gives us joy and new hope, it leads us, even in times of trial and difficulties to a deeper encounter. … Unfortunately we are used to a culture of indifference, … but we have to work and ask for the grace to build a ‘culture of encounter’ … that returns to each person their dignity as children of God.
“Jesus shows us the way: not just by seeing, but looking, not just hearing, but listening, not just passing by, but stopping, not just saying ‘what a shame, poor person’ but reaching out to him, letting compassion fill your heart.” (Pope Francis, Homily, 13-9-2016).
In this year of Jubilee, let us foster the ‘culture of encounter,’ To achieve this we have to leave our comfort zones and reach out to our brothers and sisters in their concrete situations. Pope Francis says: “In the Gospel we read that Jesus invites his disciples to go forth. It is not a useless walk of the Lord, while He walks, He encounters, when He encounters, He draws nearer and when He draws nearer, He speaks, when He speaks, He touches with His power and when He touches, He heals and saves.
“Go forth into an encounter, staying a while with affection with the person and without fear. (cf. Francisco, Apostolic Visit in Colombia, 7-10 Sept. 2017)
Let us reach out to our brothers and sisters who live in the “existential peripheries” of the different social situations. In each of the six islands of our Diocese, we can identify some conditions of loneliness, material and spiritual poverty, indifference, individualism and even discrimination. Our task as disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ is to be able to go forth, creating a visit and an encounter with each other, especially with those in need.
Let us encourage each other in our parishes and pastoral groups, especially in these seasons of Christmas, Lent and Easter, promoting the beautiful custom of blessing family homes.
In our clergy conference, as a pastoral goal for the Jubilee year we wish to promote unity among priests, religious and laity. But in order to achieve unity, we must prepare the ground and sow the seed of dialogue and trust, approaching each other in the spirit of brotherhood.
It is necessary to create activities that foster sharing and celebrating our faith as a family, our friendship as a group and our unity as a parish community.
As a priority to promote unity, we wish to render the laity the place they deserve as having the biggest membership in the Church, and because they have an important mission to fulfill for the sanctification of the world, through the testimony of their lives (see Lumen Gentium 31). Pope Francis tells us that “hope in Latin America and the Caribbean passes through the hearts, minds and arms of the laity!”
In a particular way, let us promote the Family Apostolate and Youth Ministry with formation programs for parents like a school for parents, encouraging attendance in the Sunday Eucharistic celebrations with their families and organizing visits to the families living in the parishes.
The year 2018 will be a year dedicated to the youth due to the coming Synod of Bishops with the theme: Youth, faith and vocational discernment; It will be a year of preparation for the World Youth Day that will take place in Panama in January 2019.
The Diocesan Commission on Youth Ministry has initiated a formation program for our youth, taking into account the concrete realities of the family and youth in each island. To achieve this, I suggest that every priest of the parish and all catechists must encourage the children and young people who have been confirmed and those still preparing to be confirmed to continue and persevere in coming together to the Sunday Eucharistic celebrations.
I hope that in each parish will emerge youth groups that can share the Word of God and organize cultural and sports activities.
One of the important points for us to cultivate the seed of unity and harvest its fruits is called “pastoral conversion”, which is a grace of the Holy Spirit to renew our way of evangelizing.
Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium explains what pastoral conversion means: “make sure that all our structures become more missionary, so that pastoral work in all its aspects and instances becomes more open in such a way as to make all the pastoral workers in a constant attitude of going forth, reaching out and evokes positive reactions from those whom Jesus gathers in his name”(EG27).
Among the goals in our Diocesan Pastoral Plan says: “Let the Word of God encourage and motivate all our pastoral activities and parish life: meetings, preaching, catechesis, enthronement of the Bible at schools and family homes.”
I request the School Board, teachers and students of our Catholic Schools in a particular way, to take this goal into account because it is a very important aspect for the young people of the Church.
I conclude this message by praying to our mother Mary to be with us during this Jubilee year and bring us to our encounter with her Son Jesus and with each other:
“Mother Mary, Immaculate Conception, humble servant of the Lord and Mother of the Church, intercede for our bishop, our priests and religious and all the faithful, so that we may always remain united to your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
Your servant in Jesus and Mary,
Luis A. Secco, SDB
Bishop of Willemstad
Dear Editor,
Who should be put first in a country? I believe it is the people.
I also believe that it is the people who put representatives to look after the affairs of the country in their benefit. And has as always been the case, beside their salary, certain privileges are offered to those people, with expectation and confidence that they would serve the people fairly.
For a good while now Holland has been making certain demands on us to do certain things. It has reached so far that they have reinforced the Police Force with their own and also ordered the governor to take certain steps. This is not me, these are the plain facts.
Whether or not I agree with it, it should always be in the interest of the people and not the will of the politicians. As it stands right now the people are at a disadvantage because our own have not done what they ought to have done and, as it has always been, we the people do not know what is going on.
Those of us who are here have to go to work every day, whether it is to help rebuild, clean up, have relocated, etc. Many of us have lost our means of transportation and, as always has been the case, our public transportation was never optimal.
Until something is done about it, I will always comment on it.
Holland is worldwide known for their organization skills. Several months ago I spoke to Mister BOASMAN who at that time was in charge of TEATT, and mentioned that public transportation has to change. I was told that that is very difficult to do.
My point: “Take measures, invoke a transition period, regulate payments and change the system.” If Holland could be the example for the world in public transportation why is it so difficult for them to do something like that for us which is very much necessary and only on 16 square miles and a few hills.
Now is the opportune time for Mr. Boasman to ask Holland, who has been grandstanding about having 550 million euros ready if Sint Maarten should comply with their desires, to help with public transportation.
When I mentioned this at one time, a lady who works in the bank decided that I wanted to take away her job. I know the banks, and those car loan campaigns are being ridiculous. Do not they have any scruples about themselves? Are they trying to tell the world that we do not need any financial help, that in the middle of all this predicament we have means to buy new cars even though we do not know how and when we are going to get a decent roof over our heads?
Are the people of Sint Maarten really hypocrites? Do the people really not need to go out and do two and three jobs to be able to make it? If so, why should they leave their children unattended to become whatever in this world? Who are these bank people?
I believe that this is one of the reasons why government is not ready to regulate public transportation for the people. It would save the people some money and if they are obliged to buy a car that will continue to help the already engrossed banks.
Mr. Boasman, now is your chance to ask these so-willing Dutch, the transportation guru of the world, to help you fix and not or, and change our public transportation system.
We, the older folks whose money government continues to use to bail themselves out of self-inflicted predicaments, need a public transportation system that will be feasible to us. Because government does not want to stop importing cars on the island and the drivers becoming more and more daring we will need decent and reliable public transportation to get around on what is still our island, even though the nucleus is changing rapidly.
To repeat the words of a dear Sint Maartener, “Sint Maarten never knew poverty until government imported it.”
Russell A. Simmons
Dear Editor,
The Dutch and St. Maarten Parliamentarians are doing great but they should not delay the recovery process. And hopefully there should be no election. The money government will be spending for election should be used to help the people with materials, food, do more cleaning and pay the Police for overtime for the coming season. As long as the new Government goes into power election can take place early 2020.
Cuthbert Bannis
Dear Editor,
Sint Maarten is so hard right now that you’d think for one second that our loving, caring government administration offices and workers alike would maybe try and make things a bit easier for residents and citizens alike.
The Census Office a.k.a. Island Receiver’s are now doing everything by appointment. That also includes picking a simple piece of document like say a “Registraton Form.”
I honestly don’t know what’s going on with these people. But this is completely unacceptable and if I do say so myself complete backwards management. At this time people are gonna need documents to do certain things that at times cannot wait on appointment.
It’s simple and here’s another suggestion: how about you guys try putting your heads together and come up with a daily schedule for these things. Let me start by writing out a simple draft for a daily schedule.
Monday: 8:30am to 1:oopm (Apply for passports, ID and get documents like registration forms, etc.)
Tuesday: 8:30am-12:00pm (ID and other Documents),12:00pm until closing by appointments)
Wednesday: 8:30am-11:30am (ID, Passports and other Documents), 11:30am until closing by appointments)
Thursday: (Everything done by appointment)
Friday: (Appointment only). This day can also be used for people who need to pick up their passports, ID and other vital pieces of documents that we need to have on our persons.
I believe with a schedule like this it can help eliminate these long waits for IDs. You wonderful Census Office workers will have ample time to get things done. You can sit down, eat, pound some hot gossip and melee … #JustSaying #Laugh #HAHAHA
MarcA C.W. Frederick
Dear Editor,
Only the socially-inept will revel in the social shortcomings and awkwardness of others.
In an age where our senses are constantly being bombarded by a proliferation of images, objects and stimuli from mass media and the wider environment, we are more susceptible now more than any other point in our brief history of being exposed to sensory overload. What, and how much we choose to consume, determines, in part, the quality of our experiences, either enhancing or diminishing our lives in the process.
Whether we choose to spend time reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or War and Peace, instead of being glued to a Smart TV, taking in the latest action thriller, we are consciously choosing the experience we want to have. Engaging in the former can provide us with a heightened moral sense which helps us negotiate complex ethical scenarios thus expanding our horizons and understanding of different social classes, and their accompanying values.
I cannot expound on the quality of the pleasures the latter provides, since I seldom watch TV, but if it does, I'm sure it doesn't have the same benefits as the former and other works of great literature.
If I choose to visit Izi, Avantika, Topper's, Lay Back Bar on Walter Plantz Square or Gracia's Bar in Sucker Garden, it means I am anticipating great conversation, good food that excites one's taste buds, good service and friendly staff. I have preconceived ideas of what I want my experience to be. My experience is likely to provide me with both sensual and mental pleasures, as being at one of these spots is both therapeutic and cathartic.
Whatever we choose to consume in the broadest sense of the word has consequences and implications for our overall well-being. The places we go to or frequent, the food we eat, the conversations we have, the thoughts we think, the friends we keep, the manner in which we entertain ourselves, all contribute to shaping and reinforcing who we are and what we become.
There are experiences that help to eject the undesirables in us, they refine our senses and free us from the impurities and defects we all share as human beings. For instance, being in the company and dialogue of persons from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, is an opportunity to celebrate and enjoy our diversity. The knowledge we gain based on personal observation and contact should serve to enrich our lives, making us wiser, more skilful and more tolerant.
Similarly, an experience of an evening spent dining on foie gras – the officially protected gastronomy patrimony of France and a low-hanging fruit for animal rights activists – while immersed in conversation that attaches great importance to differences of social positions, meanly and vulgarly admiring and imitating those of superior social position should not be construed as qualitatively superior to an evening spent campaigning against the manner in which the duck meets it demise.
Which experience would you rather have, as neither has any inherent higher value to the senses and mind? This is where the subjectivity of experiences comes in. We can choose to listen to Mozart or Vivaldi, or music that speaks to the anguished heart, musical language able to convey the most heart-rending emotions without ever transgressing the bounds of elegance, or we can choose to stuff our auditory bank with male, sexist noise that condemns and reduces women to objects of mere sexual gratification, something for the ego to possess, rather than truly liking her as a person.
We can choose to stimulate our creative imagination with images of a world with natural beauty which has not been violated, where money has no value, and possessions are deadweight, the person with the fewest possessions is the freest, or we can limit our creative, intellectual imagination with the intuitive certainties of our daily activities.
The more we read about religion, the more we realize that the mystics were all saying the same thing – enlightenment came from the extinction of desire. Desire didn't bring fulfilment, but only temporary satiety until the next temptation came along, and that was only if you were lucky enough to get what you wanted. If you didn't, you spent your life in unrequited longing.
So whatever path you choose on the road to enlightenment, or the food you choose to feed your spiritual appetite, be mindful of this. Experiences and matters of the senses and mind are highly subjective, and don't have the same appeal to all, but it is wise to give consideration to the quality of food we eat, our social circle, the thoughts and conversations we have, the judgments and observations we make, the places we visit. In essence, take notice of what your senses and mind are consuming, every waking moment of your life, as far as humanly possible.
Orlando Patterson
