The Church is Catholic

I looked around my parsih yesterday and saw something my Dad would have loved. He often preached (for new readers, my Dad was a pentecostal preacher for more than 50 years.) against peer-group churches. He didn't like churches that only had young people. He didn't like churches that only had people from the same economic strata. Why would he have loved what I saw in my parish yesterday? Because there were very rich people, very poor people, new converts, old (I mean thousand year old) Orthodox families, three Kenyan women, lots of old people, many many children under 10. Then there are those who serve in the Altar: Our priest is Japanese, three of our acolytes are Eritrean, two are the children of European immigrants, one id my son, one subdeacon is from Nigeria, one reader is tall, blond, broadshouldered, and youthful; the sterotypical californian. The other reader is old, crooked, and fled war in the Horn of Africa. One subdeacon is a psychologist, another is a cop, another is a painter. Our deacon is an engineer. Bankers and laborers, those with education and those without, hale and infirm, young and old, from four continents. But one Gospel. One Chalice. Ond Cross. One King.