Errol Brooks
Anguilla’s foremost religious and spiritual leader, the Rt. Rev. L. Errol Brooks, has offered some timely and well-needed advice to the people of the island, about the quality of life and service they should be leading in the community with God and their fellowmen in mind.
The well-respected Anguillian Bishop of the Diocese of the North Eastern Caribbean and Aruba was at the time delivering a soul-searching sermon at the National Funeral for Mrs. Daisy “Wong” Richardson on Saturday, April, 14 at St. Mary’s Parish Church.
“Some may ask: What is God doing?” he stated. “The God whom we worship is a God of Love and His Hand of Love is outstretched to us. We are called to be agents of God’s Love in our generation. We are to care for our neighbours. We are to rekindle that spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood which once characterised this land, rather than an attitude of ‘dog-eat-dog – you kill my dog, I kill your cat’. We must break down the walls of hostility. We must walk with justice in our society.
“Secondly, we are called to spread the good news. There is so much bad news in the world, in our community, and we, as God’s people, must not be purveyors of doom and gloom. We are to bring hope to the hopeless and to those who are despondent.
“Indeed, we are in the Easter Season and we, as Christians, are called to be an Easter people – meaning people who know and who show that God has the final answer in every situation; that we do not give up when the chips are down because, as someone puts it ‘that, too, will pass’. Those who crucified The Christ on that first Good Friday thought that was the end of the matter, but Easter was still a-coming. All of us will have our Good Fridays but we need not give up because God has the final answer. When we meet those who are going through their struggles, we need to assure them that all is not lost.
“Thirdly, we must demonstrate how to disagree without demonising our opponents. We must be prepared to listen to the other point of view. We must learn how to disagree without being disagreeable. What we need, my brothers and sisters, are persons who are peacemakers and not rabble rousers… Listen to the words of St. Paul in Romans 12 and verse 18, and I quote: ‘If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.’”
Earlier, Bishop Brooks said: “We, my brothers and sisters, have to place God first in our lives; not material things; not power or positon. If we forget God, our island will be destroyed. If we focus on God, and participate in what God is doing in the world, our island surely will be blessed.”
