BREVARD — Sacred Heart Church was filled to capacity Oct. 31 for an interfaith service of remembrance entitled “Remembering the Tree of Life Synagogue.”
Speakers included the current president of the Jewish community in Brevard, Howard Rock, and the man who helped found the community, Norm Bossert. Other speakers represented the Lutheran Church, the Unitarian Universalists, the Center for Spiritual Wisdom and the NAACP.
Marvin Barg, the cantor of the Jewish community, and Tom Currie of Sacred Heart Church provided appropriate music. Names of the victims were read aloud during the service, and Barg cantored “El Maleh Rahamim” (“God full of compassion”), the Jewish prayer for the souls of the departed, to close the service.
— Dorice Narins, correspondent
SALISBURY — An outreach program in Salisbury has been named the Sister Mary Robert Ministry in honor of Mercy Sister Mary Robert Williams, who ministered there for more than 30 years.
The ministry, based at Sacred Heart Church, had languished in recent years but is being given new life as well as a new name, according to Susan Grathwohl, its longtime volunteer coordinator.
Currently, Grathwohl said, the ministry offers services such as a food pantry to parishioners and residents of Good Shepherd Gardens, affordable senior housing adjacent to the church. But the goal is eventually to serve the larger community.
Sister Mary Robert ministered in Salisbury from 1983 to 2014 and was active in many outreach services. She was instrumental in starting Rowan Helping Ministries’ homeless shelter. She also worked with the battered women’s shelter and Operation Suitcase, which provides supplies for children in foster care.
“She took care of so many families in crisis,” Grathwohl said.
The honor took Sister Mary Robert by surprise. She noted that she was named for her father, and this is the first time anything has been named for her.
— Beth Rogers Thompson