by Olivia Young<\/p>\n
Snow from Sunday\u2019s flurry still coated the ground as dozens of Bronxites gathered at the Church of the Holy Nativity on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to join together in chorus and honor the civil rights activist\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
Held by the Bronx Interparish Councils, a coalition of 19 Catholic churches across the East, South and northwest Bronx, the two hour service touched on themes of unity and equality, while also criticizing aggressive actions by Immigration Customs and Enforcement, ICE, agents.<\/p>\n
Rev. Winnie Varghese, dean of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, led a sermon that drew from one of King\u2019s from 1965. In it, he references lynching mobs, police brutality, and poverty, encouraging the congregation to \u201cstand up amid injustice with all of your might \u2026 and yet not stoop to hate in the process,\u201d<\/p>\n
After concluding King\u2019s words, Varghese said to those in the pews that God has called on them to live out their faith in the present moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time of ICE in our streets, this time of chaos among our leaders, this time of new hope potential in our city,\u201d Varghese said. \u201cI am convinced that nothing \u2014 neither death nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor heights nor depths, nor executive orders or threats of detention or armed goons or white Christian nationalists \u2014 nothing of this world can separate us from the source of all our dreaming, the source of our very lives, the love of God in Christ, Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chair of the Northwest Bronx Interparish Council, Gloria Lewis, also spoke, and said she hopes listeners will strive to follow King\u2019s teachings of equality in peace. She noted that offerings go towards the MLK Memorial Scholarship Fund, a nonprofit that awards money to graduating high school seniors.<\/p>\n
As the service came to a close, a resonant organ echoed throughout the church as attendees\u2019 voices melded together in a rendition of \u201cHe\u2019s Got the Whole World in His Hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis Salder, treasurer for the Church of the Mediator in Kingsbridge, told The Press she has been attending the Bronx MLK service for more than 15 years, and coming together on the day keeps hope alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to remember the struggle has always been there, and that we are part of the struggle for equality in this country,\u201d Salder said. \u201cWe have to remind people not to be discouraged, not to give up \u2014 it\u2019s a fight, and we have to keep fighting for what\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\tKeywords<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tMartin Luther King JR.,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t ICE,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Bronx Interparish Council,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Church of the Mediator\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Olivia Young Snow from Sunday\u2019s flurry still coated the ground as dozens of Bronxites gathered at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,48766,48767,2035,25710,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-108226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-bronx-interparish-council","tag-church-of-the-mediator","tag-ice","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}