ST. JOHN’S, Antigua — As the Catholic community joined with the nation in observing the National Day of Prayer, Bishop Robert Llanos challenged the people of Antigua and Barbuda to examine not only what they pray for as a nation, but also how they live with one another.

Presiding at Holy Mass at the Holy Family Cathedral, Bishop Llanos placed the day’s national prayer within the context of the day’s Scripture readings, drawing particular attention to St. Paul’s teaching that while knowledge can lead to self-importance, “it is love that makes the building grow.”

For the Bishop, the message had an immediate application to national life.

“Knowledge gives self-importance but it is love that makes the nation grow.”

Bishop Llanos said that love is what enables a nation and its people to mature into what God intends them to become. Understanding and knowledge are necessary, he acknowledged, but knowledge that produces only self-importance and vanity ultimately serves little purpose.

He warned that when people place themselves and their own interests before God, whether individually or collectively, they risk falling into a form of idolatry—placing their trust in power, authority and the things of this world rather than in God. Such a path, he cautioned, cannot build a nation or help it mature.

A Different Kind of Love

Turning to the Gospel, Bishop Llanos focused on Jesus’ challenging command to love one’s enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us and pray for those who treat us badly.

He acknowledged that the teaching is difficult, particularly because most people can readily identify those who have hurt, opposed or mistreated them.

But Jesus, he explained, calls Christians to something radically different from the patterns of behaviour that often characterize human relationships.

“You can’t be like those who hate you, those who curse you, those who treat you badly, because then you’re no different to them,” the Bishop said.

Applying the Gospel directly to national life, Bishop Llanos asked how Antigua and Barbuda can break cycles of hostility, resentment and retaliation. His answer was simple but demanding: love those who treat you badly.

The Bishop emphasized that this is not a passive or sentimental form of love. Rather, it is the generous love modelled by God and revealed in Jesus Christ.

Building a Nation with Generous Hearts

Reflecting on Jesus’ teaching that the measure given to others will be the measure returned, Bishop Llanos called on Antiguans and Barbudans to become “super generous” in the way they love and treat one another.

He stressed that the love necessary for building a nation cannot be conditional or transactional.

A transactional approach to relationships says, in effect, you treat me well and I will treat you well. But, he argued, a nation cannot be built on that kind of conditional exchange.

Instead, when things are wrong or broken within society, people are called to respond with compassion and love.

“It has to be built with a generous love, a desire that when things are wrong and broken in our midst that we bring to it the exercise of compassion and love,” he said.

Prayer Must Be Matched by How We Live

Bishop Llanos also connected the effectiveness of national prayer with the moral and spiritual lives of those who pray.

If the people of Antigua and Barbuda are praying for God’s blessing upon the nation, he said, they must approach God with the intention of becoming men and women who love as God calls them to love—generously, caringly and compassionately.

The purpose, he said, is to build one another up rather than pull one another down, thereby strengthening both the Body of Christ and the wider community of Antigua and Barbuda.

His message therefore transformed the National Day of Prayer from simply an occasion to ask God to change the nation into an invitation for citizens to allow God to change them.

A Call to Be “Generous Lovers”

In his concluding appeal, Bishop Llanos urged the Catholic community to accept the challenge of becoming “generous lovers of one another” and, through that way of living, to help dispel the darkness that may seek to overcome the nation.

He reminded the congregation that prayer must be accompanied by action: “By the way we pray, by the way we fast, by the way we give generously and are an example of love to each other.”

The Bishop’s message offered a distinctly Christian vision for national renewal. The transformation of Antigua and Barbuda, he suggested, begins not simply with changes in institutions or circumstances, but with the transformation of hearts.

On a day when the nation came together to pray, Bishop Llanos left the Catholic community with a demanding but hopeful message: if we want to build a stronger nation, we must become a people who love more generously—especially when it is difficult.