All Are Welcome

It only takes one cat – or person – to make another feel welcome and special.

Laura C. Monteiro, American author, in Mariah Makes a Friend (2012)

Our church is 87 years young. We celebrated Anniversary Sunday with a special gift from the estate of Peter Haworth. Born in Lancaster, England in 1889, he arrived in Canada in 1923 and, it seems, immediately began creating stained-glass windows for a multitude of churches across Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta. We are blessed to gaze upon his work each week and to have received, some eight decades later, five of his original sketches for the magnificent windows that so vividly illumine the Bible stories.

Even before the sermon 'provoked' us to love and good deeds, the congregation sang out with committed voices:

Let us build a house where hands will reach
beyond the wood and stone.
To heal and strengthen, serve and teach,
and live the Word they’ve known.
Here the outcast and the stranger bear
the image of God’s face.
Let us bring an end to fear and danger;

All are welcome, all are welcome,
all are welcome in this place.