Years of prayer and planning finally came to fruition Thursday, April 6, as Living Water Community (LWC) opened their newest ministry: Mercy Home, a hospice for persons living with AIDS.

Archbishop Edward Gilbert formally opened the hospice, expressing “joy” at being able to celebrate the Community's “outreach in the Church and the nation, in the name of the Catholic Church”.

“It is a great ad for the authenticity of the Church and Catholic spirituality!” he declared. “People who get involved in service usually turn in on themselves, which is a great mistake; a great mistake which Living Water has never made.”

Just over 50 persons gathered for the celebration, which began with Holy Mass. Three of LWC's priests, Msgr Michael de Verteuil, (main celebrant), Fr Jason Gordon and Fr Roger Paponette, celebrated.

Archbishop Edward Gilbert, LWC founder and leader, Rhonda Maingot, MRF director, Professor Courtenay Bartholomew and Fr Jason Gordon.

The founders: Rhonda Maingot (left) listens as co-founder Rose Jackman stresses her point in a brief vote of thanks.

Archbishop Edward Gilbert cuts the ribbon, formally opening Mercy Home.

In his homily, Msgr de Verteuil said that Mercy Home, “would be a place where God would reach out, through all those who minister here, to those in need of mercy.”

To prepare for this ministry, LWC worked closely with the Ministry of Health, the National AIDS Co-ordinating Committee and the Medical Research Foundation of T&T (MRF).

As a hospice, the ten-bed home will provide professional medical and palliative care; as a ministry, Mercy Home will provide a highway to heaven.

“It is an opportunity to celebrate life as we prepare our brothers and sisters for eternal life,” said LWC founder and leader, Rhonda Maingot. “This is a wonderful gift, to prepare someone for the eternal kingdom!”

One of the ways to do that is to provide an environment that nurses patients back to spiritual, as well as physical, health.

“To the patients and people God will send, we must be life-givers,” said Mercy Home co-coordinator, Betty de Souza.

“We have to welcome them, give them warmth; we have to let them know how special, how very precious they are.”

Historically, the Church has always cared for the terminally ill, particularly those whose diseases carried negative social stigmas, a fact to which MRF director, Professor Courtenay Bartholomew, alluded.

During the 1920s and 30s, Dominican sisters ministered bravely to the lepers in Trinidad , he said, “because doctors didn't want to risk infection”.

“Leprosy was feared in those days and it had a stigma,” he declared. “The lepers of those days are as the AIDS sufferers of today. Mother Theresa cared for AIDS sufferers in India , and ‘Mother Rhonda' is doing the same in Trinidad !”

The Church continues to minister to AIDS sufferers today, according to statistics from the Vatican 's Justice and Peace Commission. Citing this study, Archbishop Gilbert said that, “throughout the world, 50 percent of the hospitals, medical centres and hospices for AIDS care are run by the Catholic Church.”

It was important for the Community to let people know what ministries are offered, he said.

“You don't advertise out of pride,” he said, “but PR is a very important contemporary ministry. Let people know what the Church is doing!” he added, stressing that this was important “having the Church be credible to the nation.

“I'm proud of what you do continually,” the Archbishop concluded. “I'm waiting for the next call to bless something you've done for the benefit of the Church and the service of the nation!”