Diversity

There is a small chapel in a small Connecticut town that is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  And in so many ways, it epitomizes a reality that transcends the stereotyping, frustration and discrimination that characterizes contemporary life.  Because in those quiet hours, the persons who appear for a taste of the quiet, for a moment of sacred space, for comfort or celebration, defy a single simple description.  Young and old, rich and poor, each kneels in the stillness. Ethnicity and language, race and gender yeild to the definition of “catholic”.   There are styles of prayer among them: couples holding hands, the elderly cradled by the middle-aged, teenagers with rosary beads,  some with arms outstretched, others prostrate before the tabernacle.  Deeper than difference is the hope, the faith, that draws each one or the space.  And to the observer, the quiet message is that somehow this is a home for all who are willing to visit.