Newtown Interfaith Council will present a service of remembrance on Tuesday, December 14. The evening gathering will remember and honor those killed on 12/14, the survivors and all affected by that day’s events, and offer prayers for the community at large.

Trinity Episcopal Church, at 36 Main Street, will host the service, which is scheduled to begin at 6:30 pm. All are welcome.

Facemasks will be required for all attendees due to the recent uptick in COVID cases and the new omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The Reverend Andrea Castner Wyatt, pastor of Trinity Church, said on December 2 that she and others of the town’s Episcopal Church continue to monitor the COVID numbers regularly. Wyatt spoke during the latest interfaith council meeting, when she and others finalized the plans for this year’s public event.

“We are definitely following the State map, still checking every week, Thursdays at 4,” when the map is updated with the latest number of in-state coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, she said. For those who prefer to view the service remotely, the annual gathering will be offered through livestream via the church website, www.trinitynewtownCT.org.

The service will include music, readings of sacred texts from various faiths, and the reading of the names of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. The format, Reverend Matt Crebbin of Newtown Congregational Church said during the meeting, “will be very similar to what we’ve done in the past.”

Wyatt plans to also invite attendees to light candles before she offers a prayer for light.

The council’s most recent meeting was the most somber for the group in months. The service was the sole item on the agenda for the virtual gathering. Other council members unable to attend the meeting indicated they would participate in the December 14 service.

Where in past meetings there is usually light conversation and joking among the local faith leaders, last week’s was a very serious discussion.

Those in attendance — Eman Beshtawii, Al Hedaya Islamic Center; Lori Miller, Newtown United Methodist Church; Rabbi Shaul Praver, Department of Corrections; John Woodall, Baha’i Faith of Newtown; and Reverend Andrea Castner Wyatt, Trinity Episcopal Church, in addition to Crebbin — agreed that the gathering would be an important one to offer despite the fact many people choose to not attend.

“Some people don’t want us to do something,” Crebbin said. Conversely, he added that “others would get upset if nothing was done. That’s the challenge.”

Woodall called it “a mixed balance.”

Crebbin agreed, saying it is also important for the town’s faith leaders to offer a service that offers comfort and peace but never reaches into politics.

“I don’t disagree with activism on any level,” he said, “but not in this setting. Some families have said outright that they don’t want to see their loved ones used politically. We need and want to offer comfort and compassion, without politicizing the victims or any of the shootings that fatally or otherwise wounded people.”

Woodall said the issue of school and mass shootings is “a national wound.

“We would be remiss if we didn’t memorialize and remember those we have lost,” he said, with nods of agreement coming from his friends and contemporaries.

Much of the meeting, which lasted just over an hour, concerned the annual challenge of language. Wyatt, who will be hosting the first in-person 12/14 remembrance service for Trinity since her arrival in Newtown, was guided by the others on what will and will not be expected.

There will not be an offering, nor will there be a reception, she was told.

The December 2 meeting was just two days after the nation’s latest school shooting, in Oxford, Mich. Four students died and eight people were wounded at Oxford High School November 30 after being shot by a 15-year-old male student armed with a semiautomatic handgun.

Woodall noted that “unfortunately, our own experience leads us to compassion for that community.”

Wyatt said she and the members of Trinity Church are honored to share their space for the planned service. “That’s what we’re here for,” she said.

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Associate Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.