Born: December 26, 1936

Priestly Ordination: June 21, 1964

Episcopal Ordination: September 7, 1994

Appointed as 9th Archbishop of Port of Spain: March 20, 2001

Installed as Archbishop: May 5, 2001.

The left side of the viewer:

These arms are composed of blue field on which are displayed three silver (white) peaks to recall that Christopher Columbus named the island for “The Trinity” when he discovered it in 1498. Above the three peaks is an eight pointed star, emitting ray toward the base, to honour the Blessed Virgin Mary in her title of the Immaculate Conception, titular of the Cathedral-Church of the diocese.

For his personal arms, seen in the sinister impalement (right side) of the shield, His Grace, Archbishop Gilbert, has retained the arms that he adopted at the time that he was selected to receive the fullness of Christ’s Most Holy Priesthood, as he became Bishop of the Diocese of Roseau, in the Commonwealth of Dominica, also in the West Indies.

These arms are composed of three sections. To the lower left is a silver (white) field on which is seen a simple, wooden (brown) abbot’s crozier to honour Saint Gilbert who was an abbot. This symbolism is place beside a red field on which is placed a gold (yellow) carpenter’s square to honour the Archbishop’s baptismal patron, Saint Joseph, the worker.

All of these symbols are placed below a blue field on which are placed the symbols of the Archbishop’s religious order, the Redemptorists, the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. This is composed of a cross that is placed on a lance and a pole with a sponge on the end. These are symbolic of the price that Christ paid for our redemption. These are placed between the abbreviations of the names of Joseph and Mary.

For his motto, Archbishop Gilbert uses the phrase “THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH.” It is through the use of this phrase taken from the prophet Isaiah (Is. 12:2) that His Grace expresses his deep belief that for any of us to really accomplish anything of meaning, it must be done through, with and by the power of The Lord, Jesus Christ.

The device is completed with the external ornaments which are a gold archiepiscopal processional cross (having two cross members), which is place in the back of the shield and which extends above and below the shield, and a pontifical hat, called “gallero”, with its ten tassels, in four rows, on either side of the shield, all in green. These are the heraldic insignia of a prelate of the rank of archbishop by instruction of The Holy See of March 31, 1969.