Mark Guydish

I wouldn’t know a Baha’i devotional gathering if I barged into one looking for a restroom, even though the core of the religion’s philosophy – unity across faiths and borders – has appeal.

Never attended a Bishop Hoban Lady Argents basketball game during Bob Schuler’s phenomenal run as coach, either, though under his 21-year tenure the team won nearly 72 percent of its games, six league and six division titles, and went to states three times, returning with a victory in 1999.

Yet the two – Baha’i and Schuler – crossed my path quite accidentally this week at the same locale: Wilkes-Barre’s grandly designed St. Nicholas Church.

The ornate house of worship hosted a Thanksgiving interfaith service Tuesday night, a rare chance to hear opening remarks from a Roman Catholic priest, prayers and readings from representatives of the Hindu, Baha’i, Lutheran and Unity Church faiths, sermon by an Episcopal priest, and benediction from a rabbi. ( The Muslim representative didn’t make it due to illness).

A scant 17 hours later, St. Nick’s helped say farewell to Schuler in a funeral Mass concelebrated by four priests before a nearly packed house.

Even agnostics and atheists ought to take comfort at the commingling of different faiths, many of which would never have shared a prayer just 50 years ago.

The attendance – or more specifically, the disparity – was the first thing that struck me. The interfaith service drew fewer than 70 people, and that’s estimating generously. The funeral drew at least 200, and that’s almost surely selling the crowd short. Leaders from more than half a dozen faiths get together and they can’t muster enough followers to fill a small chapel, while the eulogy for one man brings in three times more people?

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