Religious Perspective: The Light And Tutu’s Legacy

January 4, 2022 | By Hopeton O’Connor Dennie |

This article is a wide ranging one which also contains excerpts from a sermon presented at the St. Jude’s Church, Stony Hill on the First Sunday after Christmas by Reverend Khan Honeyghan, rector of the Cure of Souls of the parish.  The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu had just passed hours before.  Reference is made to his passing and loss to not only South Africa, but Jamaica, all persons of colour, lovers of humanity and racial equality.  We cannot say too much about Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Gone too soon.

The light of Christ has shone …. We should also let our light shine to the world’s

Desmond Tutu 90

Desmond Tutu has passed at age 90.  His light shone on the apartheid racist system.  Thereby exposing the cockroaches and toppling that racist and disgraceful, distasteful, demeaning and disgusting system of racial inequality, to say the least.

The rector intersperts with caring comments.

“The Christmas tree has the light that represents many people of various races. Today is Stephen’s execution or martyrdom.

We will also celebrate the period of  innocence during this period.

The light shines 

“This little light of mine” hymn

At Christmas time there are more accidents. Christmas is 12 days, as we celebrate same.

COVID 19, death and other forms of darkness. Within everyone of us there is some amount of darkness.  A lost job or a drop in income. The price of gas has gone up, etc…

Desmond Tutu got his inspiration from the fact that there is light”.

Declared Reverend Khan Honeyghan at the mass.

Matthew 5 ” You are the light …”

Let your light so shine before men  …

You and I have the job to let your light so shine. As you journey through the darknesses in your personal lives. God is with you and me.

Shine Jesus shine … Song

The light of your love is shining …

David motivated this song

Search me,. …. shine on me.

Matthew 5 …Let your light so shine. Like a lamp stand … We do not place same under a bed.

When you die what will people say about you.  What have you left behind as your legacy?

Reflecting on the year just coming to a close, the Rev. Khan Honeyghan declared inter alia:

“I have had a few moments of light to join with people off the streets. A woman brought a van load of toys.  We got same and donated toys to the SOS Children’s Village. A lady visited the office she was 101. She was born in the 1920s.  What made you stand so well. That was the question posed to her.

“I let nothing bother me”

Turning on over the death of Tutu the rector said among other things.

Desmond Tutu died at age 90.

During the period of the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”  Tutu played a vital role.  He got the Nobel Prize for Peace for same.  South Africa has lost a true son, a patriot and public servant par excellence. Coupled with the fact that he was an archbishop of the Anglican church in South Africa.

Hopeton O’Connor-Dennie was there and filed this report and do express our sadness at the passing of Tutu. May his soul rest in peace and light perpetual shine on him.

Commentary

Desmond Tutu, the late peacemaker and Archbishop of South Africa made a monumental contribution to mankind, through religion, and world peace.  We mourn his loss.  We are poorer as a world by his passing.  As a Nobel Peace Prize winner that acculade cannot truly measure the invaluable contribution Tutu has made and the legacy he has left.

George Floyd

When we recall the suffering George Floyd experienced at the hands of the racist cop Derick Chauvin who has been convicted for murdering Floyd, the full extent of Tutu’s contribution to race relations really stands out.

To expose the falsehoods in any society is road that should be taken for healing.  South Africa did that after a very dark chapter in their history. This a lesson to us all. Shine the light on darkness. Truth certainly does that.

Hopeton O’Connor-Dennie is a poet, elegist, author and senior international journalist who writes for Vision Newspaper