We sat there today, one body made of many people.  There was but one beating heart among us, and it beat in time with the falling of our tears.  All of us had come for our own reasons, and no one questioned the presence of another, or why someone was missing.  It was enough to know that all were thinking about them, about the fire, about how all of our lives had forever changed on this date, one year ago.

As people of faith we had been told that we would not only survive, but eventually live, truly live, again; and we did.  We all were here today to show this; to show it to the rest of the world, to each other as a community, and, perhaps, most importantly, to ourselves.  Hearing the words of the archbishop last year, I don’t think any of us felt the full impact of what he was saying, or the full truth in his statement that we, as a people of faith, would survive this tragedy.  For myself, his words held a strange comfort, but there was not then any concrete proof of this to cling to.  As a person of faith, I clung to his words.  Because I believed in God’s infinite mercy, I knew we would survive this.  As a loving Father, He would not abandon us, whether or not we “felt” His presence physically.  He waited for us to come to Him, as He always does, with open arms and a loving heart to embrace us into His warmth.  As a loving Father, He knew best what we needed, and He supplied it, heedless of our own actions.  When we needed help, He gave it, disregarding the many times we may have ignored someone in need.  When we needed comfort, He was ready to hold us, and to weep with us, graciously forgetting the many times we may have turned away from those who sought us out as a shoulder to cry on.  When we needed love, He showed it to us in each other, ignoring the many times we may have acted in hateful ways.  Our loving Father was there for us, and continues to be there for us in each moment, and leaves it to us only to accept or reject Him.

Seeing everyone there today, I knew we had accepted Him when we needed Him most.  I saw reason to hope that we would continue to go on, as a people of faith, accepting God’s love and mercy, His kindness and assistance, in times of anguish and in times of joy.  As a people of faith, we have survived this year.  As a people of faith, we will live in the ones to come.