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From left: Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, and Pastor George Frederick join hands during prayer at the memorial service. (IWN photo)
From left: Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, and Pastor George Frederick join hands during prayer at the memorial service. (IWN photo)

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has appealed for Vincentians to live lovingly with each other.

“I want to ask, as part of the remembrance, … as we are going forward, those who are dead, I know we are still emotional about it, but we can’t help them. They are dead. But we can’t have a remembrance which is just formalistic — that we do it here in this nice church, and beautiful music, and good preaching and praying; we have to show our faith in deeds, because it is good deeds that faith is made perfect, made complete.

“And we have to live better with one another, we are not living good enough with one another,” he said Wednesday — Christmas Eve – at a national remembrance service for the lives lost as a result of the Christmas 2013 trough system.

Nine persons have been confirmed dead and three are missing a result of the extreme weather event.

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“Arnhim and I, with our disagreements politically, and there will be differences, but he and I should live better with one another,” Gonsalves said to laughter and some applause at the service at St. Mary’s Anglican Church in Pembroke, where he sat next to Leader of the Opposition, Arnhim Eustace.

“And the churches, people inside the very churches, should live better with one another, because, sometimes, those who are preaching peace, sometime inside, as the pope (Pope Francis) said the other day, there is the terrorism of gossip, trying to pull down one another. And then we have to live better with our brothers and sisters. We have to start…” Gonsalves said.

“We have to do better, and you know we can do better with one another. However good we are doing, we can do better, and let this remembrance day say to each of us in our individual and collective lives, let us do better and let us do better so that when we say we can go to that rock and go higher and higher that we ain’t just say it with words.

“’Cause it’s nice when we sing it, but we can do it, and I think today, while we are here — I know there is no communion or anything like that — I think that each of us should say at some time, ‘Lord we adore you, we love you, Lord, I confess my sins and I regret that I have trespassed against others. Forgive me.’

“We have to thank him for all the blessings and we have to reaffirm that we are in individual and collective supplication to him and he is king and that our nation is founded on the belief in the supremacy of God and the freedom and dignity of man,” Gonsalves said, echoing the preamble of the Constitution.

“If we move a little towards that, a little more, I think we can see a better Christmas and a better New Year, despite all the problems which we have in the world,” the Prime Minister said.

Persons lay candles near Marty's Gas Station in Cane Grove after the memorial service on Christmas Eve in memory of the lives lost one year earlier. (IWN photo)
Persons lay candles near Marty’s Gas Station in Cane Grove after the memorial service on Christmas Eve in memory of the lives lost one year earlier. (IWN photo)

8 replies on “At memorial service, PM calls on Vincentians to live more lovingly”

  1. Why does Mr Eustace look sooo uncomfortable? It appears as though he has little or no interest in holding hands. I am not picking on him but take a good look at the photo.

  2. It is irritating to see Mr. Eustace like this. If Mr. Eustace wants to win elections for the NDP to form a government, he has to make major major major changes in his demeanor. He is always angry and lashing out at everybody. How he expects to govern if the NDP wins?! It will be one hell of a time if the NDP wins.

  3. Urlan Alexander says:

    How many times have we heard these rhetoric from the PM only to be recant back to his old ways a few days later. If you listen to his independence speech it was saturated with similar sentiments and a few days after that it was “wud like pease” on Eustace and others. So I could imagine the shock and bad vibes Eustace got from the PM with this photo op. I would have turn my face to look at how others looking at me too. The budget speech and debate will begin on January 12th 2015, I urge all to listen for the PM going back to his old ways as he lay the platform for the election campaign and he will surely cuss out the NDP and others like a street gyal.

  4. We all need to look in the mirror and recognize that the PM is just a reflection of us all: Vincentians are masters of preaching peace and love while they chronically practice war and hate.

  5. Big Youth who would really want to hold hand with the PM after all the sarcastic remarks he mamade constantly about all vincentians home and abroad .Even a blind man or a deaf could sesee and heard all that he said so what the heck u expected from us?

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