Multi-Faith Services Mark Thanksgiving

Many congregations in Southern California will reach across denominational lines next week to celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving--often at services calling attention to ongoing food programs for the needy.

The Arcadia interfaith Thanksgiving service Tuesday night, for example, is sponsored by 14 churches and synagogues of the Arcadia Interfaith Action Group, which formed in response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

People attending that service, at 7 p.m. in Holy Angels Catholic Church, 370 Campus Drive, are being asked to bring nonperishable food for a local food pantry--a typical request at the multi-faith services.

In La Mirada, Father David Loftus of Beatitudes of Our Lord Catholic Church will deliver the Thanksgiving message in a 7 p.m. service Sunday at Temple Beth Ohr, 15721 Rosecrans Ave. La Mirada Mayor Pete Damas will participate. Donations will go to the La Mirada Clergy Assn. Transient Fund. (562) 691-2551.

At another joint service, the Westside Interfaith Council will give thanks at 2 p.m. Sunday at Unitarian Universalist Community Church, 1260 18th St., Santa Monica. The Rev. Marge Burdge, chaplain at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, will speak. (310) 394-1518.

A Monday night service at St. Genevieve Catholic Church, 14061 Roscoe Blvd., Panorama City, is being co-sponsored by Panorama Presbyterian Church and Valley Beth Israel Synagogue. Donations at the 7 p.m. service will help the Women’s Care Cottage in North Hollywood. (818) 894-8316.

Joint services on Thanksgiving eve include the following:

* Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) will speak on prayer and politics at the 14th annual North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry Coalition service at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Adat Ari El, 12020 Burbank Blvd. (818) 766-9426.

* A 150-voice combined choir will perform at a Huntington Beach service at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Sts. Simon and Jude Catholic Church, 20444 Magnolia St. Clergy and choir members from St. Wilfrid’s Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection also will take part. (714) 962-3333.

* Shomrei Torah Synagogue and Valley Vineyard Fellowship will renew a Thanksgiving eve tradition at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the West Hills synagogue at 7353 Valley Circle Blvd. Alternating sites each year, the two congregations began celebrating the holiday together when Valley Vineyard and a precursor synagogue to the merged Shomrei Torah were neighbors in Reseda. (818) 346-0811.

* Burbank Mayor Bob Kramer will deliver a Thanksgiving proclamation at an 8 p.m. community service at Burbank Temple Emanu El, 1302 N. Glenoaks Blvd. The Rev. William Craig of First Presbyterian Church will give the sermon. (818) 845-1734.

* Churches in Rosemead are sponsoring a community service at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Evergreen Baptist Church, 1255 San Gabriel Blvd. (626) 280-0477.

On Thanksgiving Day, Los Angeles First Congregational Church, 540 S. Commonwealth Ave., will host a 10 a.m. service sponsored by the Wilshire Parish Assn., a coalition of 12 churches and one synagogue. The Rev. Charles Elswick of Wilshire Christian Church will preach. (213) 385-1341.

Also on Thursday, a Lutheran and a Pentecostal congregation in Sylmar will worship together for the second time this year. The Church of the Foothills, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation, will go to the North Valley Foursquare Church, 13390 Beaver St., for a 9:30 a.m. joint service. (818) 362-7745.

Two synagogues renewing an annual post-Thanksgiving tradition will join in a Sabbath service at 8:15 p.m. Friday at Valley Beth Shalom, 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino. Rabbi Donald Goor of Temple Judea of Tarzana will give the sermon; Rabbi Harold Schulweis of the host synagogue spoke last year at Temple Judea. (818) 788-6000.

CONFERENCES

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An all-day Catholic conference on the liturgy featuring conservative speakers, including Benedictine Father Cassian Folsom, director of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome, will begin at 8 a.m. today, at the Hinds Pavilion of the Los Angeles County Fairplex in Pomona.

The sponsoring organization, Adoremus, is a movement for “authentic reform of the liturgy intended” by the Second Vatican Council, said President Terry Barber of Azusa. The group has been critical of proposed changes in celebration of the Mass outlined in September for the Los Angeles archdiocese by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

After Folsom speaks at 10 a.m., Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, founder of Ignatius Press in San Francisco, will celebrate Mass at 11 a.m. and give the homily. Also speaking is theologian Scott Hahn of the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. Registration $25.

* Celebrating 25 years as the oldest gay synagogue in the country, Beth Chayim Chadashim of Los Angeles will hear the Rev. Troy Perry speak at 8 p.m. Sunday in the first of six seminars over the next several months.

Perry, who founded the now-international Metropolitan Community Churches as an outreach to gays and lesbians in 1968, allowed four gay Jews to start Jewish services in the basement of the Los Angeles MCC church in April 1972. First called the Metropolitan Community Temple, the congregation changed its name a year later. (213) 931-7023. $20 per event.

Sunday’s seminar will take place at the MCC church at 8714 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. On Jan. 11, four rabbis will talk about homosexuality and bisexuality in a symposium at University Synagogue and retired Reform leader Alexander Schindler will speak March 29 at Leo Baeck Temple.

DATES

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The Rev. Terry Cole-Whittaker, a onetime television minister who preached earlier this year at the Founder’s Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles, will join the Rev. Don Henderson in a Thanksgiving eve service at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Golden Circle Church of Religious Science, 600 Golden Circle Drive, Santa Ana. (714) 541-3365.

* A lecture in English and Japanese on “near-death experience, meditation and the [Buddhist] Pure Land tradition” will be given by Carl B. Becker of Kyoto University, Japan, at 1:30 p.m. Sunday in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. The talk at Jodo Shu Betsuin, 442 E. 3rd St., is free. (213) 346-9666.

* A Thanksgiving musical, featuring choirs and soloists from around Los Angeles County, will be presented in 6 p.m. performances Friday and next Saturday at Miracle Faith Apostolic House of Prayer, 6160 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach. Free. (562) 428-5506.

* Jeffrey Broughton, head of the Cal State Long Beach religious studies department, will talk about the origins of Zen in China (where the Buddhist school of thought is called Ch’an) in a free lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Hsi Lai University Auditorium, 1409 N. Walnut Ave., Rosemead. (626) 571-8811.

* The 17th annual Festival of Jewish Artisans at Temple Isaiah, 10345 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, will open at 8 p.m. today with a musical-theatrical cabaret and continue Sunday with exhibits and children’s workshops from noon to 5 p.m. $12 for the musical; $3 for the exhibit. (310) 277-2772.

FINALLY

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Eighteen people will take vows today in grand ordination ceremonies at the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles.

The levels of commitment range from one basic vow covering ethical behavior and clean living taken by four lay people to 348 vows that three women will take for ordination into the monastic life, said the Venerable Karuna Dharma. She will serve as head ordination master with the Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, who heads the center.

At the center’s last grand ordination in 1994, gender barriers were broken as a woman master gave ordination to male monastics, or bikhsus. “This was truly a milestone,” Dharma said.

The center’s ordinations also are unusual because “we cross sectarian boundaries combining all three major traditions,” said Dharma, referring to the Theravada (South Asian), Vajrayana (Tibetan) and Mahayana (North Asian) traditions.

The ceremonies at the center, 928 S. New Hampshire Ave., will start at 9:30 a.m. (213) 384-0850.

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SURVEY

Who comes for food at the church- and synagogue -supported pantries?

In the Mid-Wilshire district and Koreatown section of Los Angeles, two-thirds are men, half are 65 or older, and 8% are homeless, according to a survey last summer of 320 recipients at eight food pantries coordinated by Hope-Net.

“Nearly 60% are immigrants, but interestingly the majority of them said they are U.S. citizens,” said Candace Whalen, executive director of the Hope-Net social services program of the Wilshire Parish Assn.

“The ethnicity in our area is very mixed,” Whalen said. Of those surveyed, 42% were Asian American, 28% black, 18% white and 12% Latino, she said. Only 11% were employed.

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