Keep Ithaca always in your mind
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
So you are old by the time you reach the island,
Wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
Not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.
Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you have become, so full of experience,
You will have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.-Konstantinos Kavafis
On Thanksgiving Day, the Interreligious Council of New Rochelle held its annual Community Thanksgiving Service. The service rotates among the various congregations with this year’s service being held at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church at 10 Mill Road at the very northern extent of North Avenue. The service was broadcast live on WVOX-1460 AM with guest commentator Dino Yotides and will be telecast via tape delay on the local cable channel 75.
The Interreligious Council was founded in 1975 by Rabbi Amiel Wohl of Temple Israel, the late Rev. Peter Kyriakos of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, and the late Sister Dorothy Ann Kelly of the College of New Rochelle as a way to bridge divides in the rather diverse Queen City. The Thanksgiving service highlights its activities and the service has grown to encompass most of the religious institutions in New Rochelle.
The church filled quickly and the service began at 9AM sharp with the clergy and the other representatives proceeding to seats in front of the altar. The Rev. Susan Postals of the Empty Hand Zen Center began the service with a verse of gratitude, thankful “for the opportunity to come together: to celebrate our common humanity, to appreciate our shared commitment to the life of the spirit, we are grateful.” At the end of her prayer, Rev. Postal struck the Zen Temple Bell to invoke peace. A second invocation prayer then was given by the Rev. Fr. Robert Gahler of the Trinity St Paul’s Episcopal Church, the oldest congregation in New Rochelle, tracing its lineage back to the founding Hugenots. His prayer ended with the chimeless but irenic plea that “we share our blessings with the needy, And seek to lift the burden of care from the heavy-laden, so that all may celebrate this day of you before You.”
The Rev. Nicolas Anctil, pastor of the hosting Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church officially welcomed the participants as did the President of the Interreligious Council, Prof. Carl Procario-Foley, Director of Campus Ministry at Iona College. Rev. Anctil saluted the founders Rabbi Wohl, who was in California celebrating his granddaughter’s bat mitzvah, the late Sr. Kelly, and his predecessor, the late Rev. Kyriakos. He also noted that this year’s Thanksgiving falls on the feast day of St. Katerina, but did not expound further on this.
Singlea Hall, a parishioner of the Presbyterian Church of New Rochelle, read a statement of purpose for the Thanksgiving Holiday. “Our Thanksgiving heritage reminds us that our Pilgrim forebears overcame perilous hardships and set aside a special day to thank God for answering their prayers.” Immediately following her to the podium was Rev. DeQuincey Hentz, pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church, who gave a prayer of Thanksgiving for the nation. Prior to beginning the prayer, he reminded us that on “on this day of gratitude, prayer is the appropriate attitude.” In the mood of coming together, one of the stanzas read as follows, “We thank you for the faiths we have inherited in all their rich variety. They sustain our lives, though we have been faithless again and again.”
With the pleas and thanks to God that are at the basis of such an event, we must acknowledge that there are many doubters and nonbelievers in our midst, probably even at the service. After all, we proudly display the cottage of Thomas Paine, the most famous doubter/non-believer of our republic. President Obama recognized them in his Inaugural Address. Granted, it would be a bit tricky to embrace them in an interreligious service. Like July 4, Veteran’s Day, and Memorial Day, Thanksgiving is a holiday designated for all Americans, including secular humanists.
After Rev. Hentz, three Presidential proclamations of Thanksgiving of Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Barack Obama were read respectively by Rabbi Scott Werner, Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel, Rev. Msgr. Ferdinando Berardi, pastor of Holy Family Roman Catholic Church and NY State Assemblyman George Latimer. President Obama’s proclamation concludes in encouraging “all the people of the United States to come together-whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors-to give thanks for all we have received in the past year, to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and to share our bounty with others.” That should go a long way in appeasing the acolytes of Thomas Paine.
Rev. Taejoon Lee, pastor of the Korean Presbyterian Church of Westchester read from Isaiah 35:1-10. His delivery was somewhat erratic and choppy, less likely from language issues than from the timeliness of the words to the demonic threats hovering over his homeland. “Say to those who are of fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”
Fr. Joseph Flynn, Campus Chaplain at the College of New Rochelle then read from Matthew 25:31-46, a New Testament passage a bit heavy on the fire and brimstone. “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left…Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me…Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” No Kumbaya for you!
Francis Hayden, M.D., member of the B’hai community read from the writings of Baha’u’llah and initially lowered the collective blood pressure of many of us goats in the audience. “The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men.”His therapeutics were rather short-lived, ending with some sobering thoughts. “The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appeareth to be lamentably defective. I beseech God, exalted be His glory, that He may graciously awaken the peoples of the earth, may grant that the end of their conduct may be profitable unto them, and aid them to accomplish that which beseemeth their station.
Passages from the Qur’an scheduled to follow were skipped as the reader was a no show. It’s possible that the anonymous effendi was still resting from Id-al-Adha exertions, including the ritual, er, goat sacrifice. Absent and not scheduled to speak were representatives of the burgeoning Young Israel congregation. The substitute mailman must have gotten confused again and dropped the invitation at the neighbors. As well, no representation from the Hindu community was present. While there is no mandir in New Rochelle, there is a significant Hindu presence in New Rochelle, many of whom provide medical care for our community, making themselves available at all hours.
The featured speaker for the service this year was Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, Associate General Secretary for Faith and Order and Interfaith Relations of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. He very ably was introduced by New Rochelle’s own Rabbi David Kosak of Beth El Synagogue. Rabbi Kosak related his experiences at an interfaith meeting in Texas, when he felt “wicked joy” at the internal divisions amongst the Baptists. To him, this was very reminiscent of similarly pedantic intra-faith divisions in Judaism. He encouraged the audience, despite the difficulties, to maintain a proper balance and simultaneously “hold fast to unity and uniqueness.”
Dr. Kireopoulos’ talk was entitled “Do Neighbors Still Matter: A Thanksgiving Reflection”. He immediately struck out at the crass commercialization of our holidays as Halloween marketing transitions directly into the Christmas drive. Christmas “has become a measure of consumer confidence”, cheapening the holiday. Thanksgiving has been dominated in recent years by Black Friday, bypassing our “National Myth” that the Indians and European settlers came together as neighbors.
Dr. Kireopoulos suggested that we might help our neighbors “through harvests of our time.” We must work on a personal, societal, and philosophical level. On a personal level, we must “break down barriers and create true friendships.” On a societal level, we must provide for the 14% who can barely afford Thanksgiving dinner; we must stop pushing away immigrants; we must combat global warming; and we must avoid fear and fear-mongering as occurred this summer during the Cordoba House debates. On a philosophical level, we must strive for the “Common Good”, as our nation so ably demonstrated in its past through the Revolutionary War patriots, the Civil War’s abolitionists, the Doughboys of WW1 fighting for Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the GIs of WW2 fighting for FDR’s Four Freedoms, and the Civil Rights marchers of the 1960s. Most recently, we briefly experienced this feeling during the coming together in the days after the 9/11 Tragedy, quickly to become mired in “partisan politics, personal gain, fear-mongering, and grandstanding.”
Dr. Kireopoulos then lauded the work that the National Council of Churches has done recently to unite us for the Common Good. They have condemned the near burning of the Qu’ran by Gainesville, Florida Pastor Terry Jones as well as the contemporaneous bombing attacks on the Iraqi churches.
It would appear that the National Council of Churches is doing much useful and honorable work, done by honorable people. However, a little less self-righteous moral equivalency might be more unifying. A media-hungry leader of a small congregation threatening to exercise his First Amendment rights to an exponentially moronic degree does not compare with the murderous actions of jihadist cults with genocidal designs on the Iraqi Chaldeans. “Fear and fear-mongering” was mentioned as stimuli for the Cordoba House opposition, but respect and honor for the martyred was the far likelier motivation. Given the prevailing theme of moral equivalency, it only would have been proper to play to the home team audience by referencing the much delayed construction of the St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, the only house of worship to be demolished during the Terror Attacks of September 11, 2001.
Carole Troum, the director of the Hope Community Services, thanked the assembled for their upcoming Thanksgiving offering. Those benefiting from the offerings were the Brown Bag Lunch Program of Trinity St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Project HOPE, Manna Ministries of Union Baptist Church, and Love in Action Soup Kitchen Ministry of First Assembly of God. As offertory baskets were distributed by the ushers, a notorious hemi-Hellene tightwad was heard to exclaim, “Hey, I thought we were going to skip this part today!”
Rev. Andres A. Fernandez-Lopez of St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church gave an offertory prayer, which he recited in English and Spanish. Rev. Martin Nelson, pastor of Bezer Holiness Church gave a closing prayer after apologizing for reciting it in English only. “On this Thanksgiving, we pray to you, most loving God, that you will unite your diverse peoples who strive to live out your vision of justice, equality, freedom, and peace.”
Rev. Anctil concluded the service, introducing congregant and Deputy US Trade Ambassador Demetrios Marantis, fresh from G-20 deliberations, and latecomer Jim Killoran, President of the Westchester Habitat for Humanity. He acknowledged the wonderful work done by the Junior Choir of the Holy trinity Church and its director Georgann Mavrovitis and organist Sia Tofano. Led by Deacon John Mamangakis (aka Vice President of Operations at New Rochelle Hospital), the attendees then made a beeline to the reception hall where various sweets and hors d’oeuvres had been prepared by the Parish Council, the Ladies Philoptochos, and parishioners of Holy Trinity Church. Cookies, baklava, tiropitas, and spanakopitas were piled high on the plates. Nothing too healthy for Thanksgiving was available, such as lentil soup or horta (purslaine). Remember, we have to make room for the turkey. No omega-3 for you!
Despite the preceding quibbling, carping and Thursday morning quarterbacking, Dr, Kireopoulos’ main message was on target. We always need to strive for the Common Good and reach out more to our neighbors. As well, the Thanksgiving Day remains the holiday to which the immigrant best can relate, even as the immigrant story may change from generation to generation. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak is best remembered as the unfortunate soul who ran interference for the bullets fired by Italian immigrant and anarchist-bricklayer Giussepe Zangara at the patrician President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his Miami motorcade on February 15, 1933. Cermak had arrived in Chicago as a child from his native Bohemia in the Austria-Hungarian Empire and had made his way up the political ladder by fostering friendships and alliances amongst a variety of classes, races and ethnicities. During the vitriolic 1931 mayoral campaign, Cermak was derisively monickered ‘Pushcart Tony’. When Cermak was prodded one too many times about his Eastern European origins, Anton blasted back with his timeless, but unfortunately long ignored and forgotten, maxim: “I may not have come over on the Mayflower, but I got here as fast as I could.”
Rev. Anctil had mentioned St. Katerina, but just who was she? In the Orthodox calendar of Saints, Katerina the Great Martyr of Alexandria is described as “a young woman of rare beauty and education. She was beheaded during the reign of Maximian (285-305 A.D.). Her relics were taken to the mountain of Sinai. She is the Patron Saint of students.” Maybe St. Katerina does have some relevance to us. We are a nation that at this time stresses education as the key to success. Of course, there must be a balance, as we all don’t want to be martyred like St. Katerina. From a policy perspective, we might need a little more emphasis on our manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Needless to say, however we read the tea leaves, we can only hope that there will be more Katerinas both produced and accepted by our immigrant nation.