The many dimensions of using marijuana and cannabinoids
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “Our bodies are ours to use, but we have to account one day to the Lord as to how we took care of them and what we did with them.”—Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, Ottawa. As you know, The Dangerous Drugs Amendment Act No 24 of 2019 was proclaimed […]
Reach out in love to all families
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI Sunday, May 10 is Mother’s Day. Let’s celebrate, affirm and honour our mothers – not only today, but throughout the year. I remember my deceased mother, Ruby Ramdeen, nee Manning, who was a radiant example of love, service, patience, self-sacrifice and generosity. She had an unfailing sense of […]
Discovering God’s call in our lives
by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “Every vocation is born of that gaze of love with which the Lord came to meet us…Vocation, more than our own choice, is a response to the Lord’s unmerited call. We will succeed in discovering and embracing our vocation […]
Prisoners set free to avoid COVID-19 calamity
Open cell door By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “We don’t want our institutions to become petri dishes” —US Attorney General William Barr. Like the US Attorney-General, those in authority in T&T are concerned about the potential dangers of overcrowded prisons in the face of COVID-19. In some countries, certain categories of inmates […]
Why fear when Jesus is here?
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “…let us thank the Lord for having entered through our closed doors with his mercy, for calling us, like Thomas, by name, and for giving us the grace to continue writing his Gospel of love.” (Pope Francis) As we all hunker down behind closed doors during the […]
Our hope is in the risen Lord
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “Let us not keep our faces bowed to the ground in fear, but raise our eyes to the risen Jesus. His gaze fills us with hope, for it tells us that we are loved unfailingly, and that however much we make a mess of things, his love […]
Conscience formation is spiritual confrontation
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “Everyone is a leader of conscience…When our hearts are calm and pure, our wisdom will be unleashed…If all of us follow the guidance of our conscience, we can transform the world and accelerate humanity toward a better future”.—Dr Hong Tao-Tze, president of the Federation of World Peace […]
Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day Greeting
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI I share hereunder a speech I delivered in London at a Thanksgiving Service organised by my now deceased friend, Rev Patricia Stephens, in London in 2011: Good afternoon my brothers and sisters. It is indeed a pleasure for me to be able to join you as we […]
In times of crisis, stock up on compassion
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronisingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future”—Nelson Mandela. Mandela’s words came to mind as I watched images of elderly persons […]
Forced sterilisation and women’s rights
By Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!” (Martin Luther King Jr.) As I watched a programme on TV in London recently, on forced sterilisation of several black women in South Africa, the words of Frederick Douglass came to mind and filled me with a rage for […]
