Ascension : News From The Grotto
Submitted by The Islander (Shari Parkhill) 19.04.2007 (Article Archived on 03.05.2007)

Thought For The Week. Well, it is certainly good to be back on nice, warm Ascension Island. I had a wonderful vacation visiting with family and friends, but it was cold in Canada, even for the first of April.

Driving in snow for the first time in several years was also a challenge!  Again, an opportunity for prayer.

I had the opportunity to worship in two very different environments during my leave.  On Easter Sunday I was back in Florida and attended Mass at a very large church in Melbourne, named, appropriately enough, Ascension.  There were easily a thousand people at the service, just one of several on Easter morning.  It was a nice service, with a large choir accompanied by a number of musical instruments.  The singing was loud and joyous.

The week before, on Palm Sunday, and again on Maundy Thursday, I attended services at the little country church that my grandparents attended, we attended as children in the summers spent with them, and which my mother now attends.  It is a charming church, well over a hundred years old, with a wonderful view of the St. John River.  Many of my relatives are buried in the adjoining cemetery.  It is a small church, and both services were attended by about twenty people, many I have known all my life.  The organist loves to remind me that she used to baby-sit me when I was young.  There is an organ, a piano, and a choir of three or four people.  Again, the singing was joyous, and sounded loud in such a small building. 

These experiences reminded me that it isn’t important where you worship, or how many of you gather together, or how loud the singing is.  On this second Sunday of Easter, the readings tell us about how God appeared to the disciples after His resurrection.  First He appeared to the group, and then later to Thomas, who since he had not be in attendance at the gathering, doubted the others’ stories.  Thomas was present the second time the Lord appeared to the group, and only then did he believe. 

In the Psalm, we are also told about how the stone rejected by the builder has become the cornerstone.  Are we worried that we might have done something in our lives for which we might not be forgiven?  In this Easter season of forgiveness, and resurrection, we can put all that behind us, and start anew.  We can be renewed by our faith, and renewed by God’s presence in our lives.  We can become the cornerstone on which we can continue to build our faith. 

So in the weeks ahead, as the Easter season winds down, we should be mindful that we can all worship God in our own way, amongst many or a few, with singing or in silence.  God is there for every one of us, we just have to stop being a “Doubting Thomas”, and open our hearts, and let the Lord appear to us.