Retreat center hosts Thanksgiving interfaith prayer service by Michael Centore

“We must seek concordances, not differences,” Saint Pope John XXIII proclaimed at the outset of the Second Vatican Council. While he was speaking then of the process of aggiornamento, or a “bringing up to date” of the Catholic Church’s practices and structures, his words could apply to the proceedings of the Thanksgiving Interfaith Prayer Service held at the Holy Family Passionist Monastery and Retreat Center on Monday evening.

Situated on 48 acres in West Hartford, Connecticut, Holy Family ministers to some 19,000 retreatants every year. As one of the largest retreat centers in the US, it is known for its generous hospitality, vibrant music ministry, and commitment to dialogue and inclusion.

All of these elements were on display during Monday’s service. Holy Family retreat team member Liza Peters opened the gathering with a prayer in which she asked participants to “acknowledge and embrace our oneness” and called for “a renewed sense of solidarity and care.”

This chimed with the description of the service on the center’s event calendar as an opportunity for those “of all religious and cultural backgrounds to come together to pray and worship in a spirit of unity, gratitude, and love.” Religious leaders and representatives from various faith traditions and communities were on hand to offer reflections, prayers, blessings, and songs.

In her reflection following a reading of Colossians 3:12-17, Rev. Liza Arulampalam of Center Church and First Church of Christ in Hartford, Connecticut, spoke of “the loneliness epidemic” that is affecting our society.

Pointing out that loneliness often lurks behind addiction, depression, and anxiety, Rev. Arulampalam—or “Pastor Liza,” as she is known by her community—said that “our need for human connection is baked into our nervous system.”

Rev. Arulampalam drew out the connections between contemporary feelings of loneliness and those experienced by the kings and prophets in religious texts. When people in these texts “try to go it alone,” she said, the end result is often isolation, suffering, or exile. She contrasted this with the “deeply relational God” who wants to see people in communion with one another.

Despite differences in background and religious tradition, “We’re here tonight, together, to give thanks to God. We are the solution that we have been looking for,” she said.

Rabbi Donna Berman, executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center, began her reflection with a reference to liberation theology and its fundamental insight that “we should grant the poor epistemological privilege”: in other words, that those who “live with the least” have the most to teach us about the well-being of our society.

We should judge a society “by how the most vulnerable are doing,” Rabbi Berman elaborated. “What harms any of us harms us all. What lifts up the most vulnerable lifts us all.”

She offered several suggestions for how to take up a “view from the margins,” including reading books by and seeking out conversations with those who are different from us. She also encouraged attendees to “stand firmly in our own vulnerability” because “it is in our vulnerabilities that our real strength lies.”

These practices allow us to “act from the place of wisdom that standing on the margins bestows,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community was Dr. Richard Broggini, an award-winning educator in the Glastonbury, Connecticut, public school system.

When Dr. Broggini’s son came out to him as gay, it prompted him to take action as “an honorary member” of the LGBTQ+ community, he said. Recognizing that students “internalize rejection” and “live on the margins” as a cost of being different from others, he started a gay/straight alliance at the school where he teaches.

Dr. Broggini shared sobering statistics about the lives of LGBTQ+ students, including one study that found that more than one in five LGBTQ+ students attempted suicide in 2021. He also explained how the harsh words that students use to bully their LGBTQ+ peers can cause untold distress.

Dr. Broggini praised students in the alliance for the “wisdom to embrace who they are” and the “compassion to love others as they are,” saying that they exemplify both “great love” and “great suffering.”

Participants in the Thanksgiving Interfaith Service (Holy Family Facebook page)

Sr. Pat McKeon, RSM, offered a reflection on behalf of the homeless, with whom she has lived and worked in Connecticut for decades. Sr. McKeon emphasized that she was not speaking for “the homeless” as an anonymous group, but rather for “people who are homeless.”

“We did create homelessness, and we continue to allow it grow,” she said. There are 3,400 people who are homeless in the state of Connecticut, about half of whom are unsheltered.

People who are homeless may include elderly folks who have lost their housing due to skyrocketing rents, abused women, and “children who go to class with your children every day,” Sr. Mckeon said.

“Just like us, they have hopes and dreams, but right now they are suffering and struggling,” she added.

Sr. McKeon concluded with a story of a carpenter and his pregnant wife who had arrived to a shelter where she was working one Friday afternoon. Unable to find room, she pleaded with the owner of a hotel next door to take them in for the weekend. The owner relented, and the child was born that night and placed safely in a bureau drawer.

“They were just like us,” she said. “We have to remember that.”

Atif Quraishi, a co-founder of the American Muslim Peace Initiative that fosters interfaith dialogue, offered the evening’s final reflection.

In Islam, Quarishi said, it is taught that “if you go to bed with a full stomach, and your neighbor is hungry, you are less fortunate.” Those who are more fortunate can find others to care for, he added, describing this as “the balance created in this world.”

Quarishi illustrated the principle of compassion in Islam with the following story: Day after day, as the Prophet Muhammad walked the streets of Mecca, an elderly woman would dump trash on him from her window. When one day this didn’t happen, Muhammad went up to the woman’s room and discovered she was ill. He proceeded to take care of her, using an unlikely moment as an opportunity for encounter.

Musical interludes including psalms, hymns, and a litany of thanksgiving flowed between the reflections of the service. Holy Family retreat team member Noel Terranova led a lighting of candles for seven intentions of peace. Florine Chanthavong offered a Buddhist prayer on behalf of all living beings, and Carole Fay and Shyamala Raman gave a Hindu benediction with the repeated refrain, “May good happen to all.”

“God has been revealed to us in so many ways tonight,” Fr. David Cinquegrani, C.P., retreat director at Holy Family who oversees the center’s operations, said in his closing remarks.

“We have done in one hour what we wish the world would do every day,” he stated. “To speak of peace and to act in peace.” ♦

Michael Centore is the editor of Today’s American Catholic.

Banner image: Top row, L-R: Rabbi Donna Berman, “Peace Pole” in Holy Family’s Main Chapel, Atif Quraishi; Bottom row, L-R: Walt Whitman-inspired artwork, Florine Chanthavong, altar in Main Chapel. Photos by Michael Centore