Advent begins. The Christian community is urged once more to prepare for the coming of the Saviour who is here, already present in the world. This season of promise and hope demands that those who anticipate his coming be ready to make quality adjustments to their ways of seeing.

Advent says to citizens of our nation sickened to the core by a galloping murder rate that they can become instruments of hope and fundamental change. The Church must lead society in reassessing itself, its values, its institutions.

The First Reading on this First Sunday of Advent envisages God’s promise fulfilled, with all nations going up to the mountain of the Lord – one encouraging the other. “Many peoples shall come and say: ‘Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain, the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths’.” (Isaiah 2:3)

In October, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana, delivered a lecture in Cambridge, England on the theme “What Africa Offers the West”. His words were significant for his way of seeing Africa – and turned on their head the stereotypes which dominate the western way of thinking.

“Western eyes see only drab images of ragged starvelings, with their joints jutting out of the wrinkled skin that barely covers their skeletons. They see umpteen versions of black Lazaruses, staring out of their canvases with desolate eyes filled with hopelessness,” said the cardinal.

The very existence of the African poor “offers the West the opportunity to rise to occupy the top of the hills, where solidarity and charity embrace”, he stated.

Cardinal Turkson seems to be saying the Church of the West needs Africa in order to be fully Church. It offers the West the opportunity to see all humanity as members of the family of God.

“That which Africa offers the West is the opportunity to replace Cain’s answer, “‘Am I my brother’s keeper’, with the story of the Good Samaritan,” he said.

The Church: The Family of God

According to the cardinal, the gifts which Africa brings to the West – a sense of community, sociability, solidarity, love for life – are all values that spring from the African family.

He noted that the capacity to celebrate life was revealed in Africa’s music – in the “African’s readiness to sing and compose lyrics to rhythm”, which has given the world jazz and the blues. The African too has an appreciation of the small, “of the tiny few-and-far-between breaks that life throws” in each person’s way.

At the last Synod of Africa, the Church adopted the view of Church as a “family of God”. It is a paradigm which finds its basis in scripture and which is reflected in the African value system. It sees families as “domestic Churches” and makes of societies –
“societies-as-family”.

“Africa,” said the cardinal, “reminds the West of the way back home.” The continent has a hand in preparing western societies for Christ’s coming.

Cardinal Turkson’s reflection could prompt one to ask: What gifts has God given the people of Trinidad and Tobago to open doors to his promise and to hasten his coming?

Have we traded the precious values that mark the various ethnic groups of our nation for an alien culture?

It calls us to a fresh assessment of the gifts which, as a people and as Church, we can share and have shared with the world.

His words suggest that if we are to fulfil the call of Advent – if we are to be a source of encouragement, whether as individuals, as Church or as a society – part of the requirement will be to think and live creatively and courageously.