Thanks and praise

Clergy and parishioners from a number of local congregations gathered at the Church of the Ascension on the evening of Nov. 24 to participate in Rockville Centre’s annual Interfaith Thanksgiving service.

Powerful, moving song and music started, ended and punctuated the service. It was provided by members of Ascension’s choir, joined by the Interfaith Choir under the direction of Kenneth Dyer Jr., Ascension’s organist and choirmaster.

During a homily delivered by Msgr. William Koenig of St. Agnes Cathedral, worshippers were urged to reflect and gain perspective on what and how they give thanks, and to bless God for the promises he's kept — in good times and bad, in times of prosperity and famine. “We are never alone, we are watched and cared for,” he said, adding, “We’ve been given a promise — that God is with us.

“We offer our gratitude in your sustaining care,” Koenig said. ”Inspire us to acts of justice and loving kindness...Let us appreciate our own abundance... [and the] blessings of home, love and friendship.”

“We gather to acknowledge our common membership in humanity, to acknowledge that all good things have their common source in you from who all life proceeds,” said Rev. Dr. Robert Gunn of the United Church. “We give thanks for simple things — the laughter of children, the beauty of both sunrise and sunset, the harmonies of stars and sounds and seasons.”

But Gunn also spoke of the worry that “taints our joy — our focus on what is painful, difficult, unresolved: our worries about bills, about sickness, about jobs...the worry of shrinking investments and mounting costs.

“We worry about things far and near: the state of our health or our children’s well-being, the treat of terrorism, the cost of war in lives lost, wounded and broken; the rise of ideologies inimical, we fear, to freedom and prosperity, inimical to justice and peace,” he added. “The list of our worries is long, and tends to overshadow our gratitude, undermine our faith and make us small of mind, timid of heart, tight-fisted and afraid.”

Gunn urged worshippers to bring their “mountain load of worries” to God so that by naming them, they can clear space in their hearts for “the gratitude that arises in the grin of a child, the lilt of a song, the soothing touch of a beloved.”