A file photo of Rev. Robin Cruz, pastor assistant and Rev. Rogelio Felix-Rosas administrator for St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Hyde Park.
HYDE PARK – Preparations are in the works for the 21st Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service sponsored by Cache Community Connections, to be held on Sunday evening, November 19 at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church. The church is located at 725 S. 250 E. in Hyde Park and the service will begin at 7 p.m. that Sunday.
For years it was held at the Logan Tabernacle which is currently unavailable due to renovation, so the group opted for St. Thomas’ as that venue is large enough to accommodate the expected crowd.
Father Jason Samuel of St. John’s Episcopal Church is the current chair of Cache Community Connections (CCC)
Kathy Chudoba, a past chair of CCC, is working on the program.
“I know we have several choirs, including Westminster Bell Choir, a choir from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a musical number from Craig Mecham and others.”
She said right now they are excited to have a good variety of guests including David Zook, the Cache County executive, Matthew Whitaker from the Cache Community Food Pantry, Father Rogello Felix Rosas from St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and others. She’s invited other people, but they haven’t gotten back with her to confirm they are attending the Thanksgiving service.
“We will have some brief messages of gratitude from different faiths and civic leaders,” she said. “This is an important annual event sponsored by CCC. It is opportunity for the community to come together to express thanks.”
Chudoba said with the division worldwide we are not listening to each other. This will be an opportunity to hear a variety of ideas.
“The hope is that we will come together with different faiths and traditions to share ideas to become unified in purpose,” she said. “With all the things going on in the Middle East we come as a spiritual body and have representatives from the Jewish community and the Islamic community to unify us and feel their prayers of hope. We need to listen to what they bring to the service.”
Participants are invited to offer brief remarks of praise and thanksgiving, a prayer, a musical number (vocal, instrumental, choir), a recitation, a homily or a sermon during the service.
Participants were also asked to keep their remarks short – three to five minutes – and should be a message of inspiration, faith, and thanksgiving.
“I found something recently from Lama Foundation she said this Thanksgiving service should be about,” she said.
“The most important things we do at Lama, is to learn to pray each other’s prayers. Not in a kind of rote recitation, no, but to pray them–to feel them as our own prayers and become intimately familiar with the flavor of God expressed in and through him. Pray together if you can. Especially those for peace and healing. They are most needed.”