Local religious leaders from across Limerick have joined up for a prayer of solidarity and hope in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Nick Rabbitts reports n the Limerick Leader.
The Church of Ireland, Judaism, Islam and the Sikh faith communities have accepted an invitation of the Bishop Brendan Leahy and the Catholic Diocese of Limerick to record a special moment of prayer and reflection in the midst of the global fight against the deadly disease.
Each recorded their own player on their phones and these were then combined into a comforting two-and-a-half-minute video.
Those who took part were Bishop Brendan Leahy, Imam Khalid Ghafour of the Limerick Islamic Cultural Centre; Bishop Ken Kearon, the Church of Ireland’s Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe; Dr. Wolodymyr “Vlad” Smishkewych, a member of the Munster Jewish community, Gurmukh Bimbra Singh and Rajwinder Kaur Bimbra, members of the Mid-West Sikh community and Dr Patricia Kieran of the Mid-West Interfaith Network.
Bishop Leahy said: “All over the world, people are striving to stop the Covid-19 pandemic: researchers, health care workers, governments and many more. But today across the world, there’s a particularly beautiful manifestation of human fraternity in that faith communities and many traditions are joining in prayer to ask for us to be relieved from this pandemic.
“As difficult as the Coronavirus has been for all of us, we have seen a lot of very positive things happening at this time, people reuniting across the internet in many new ways, young and old writing letters, people singing for each other, groups of all kinds coming together in ways they haven’t before. It’s a heartening flourishing of unity in the face of the pandemic.
“Today’s coming together of our faith communities here in Limerick is another powerful example of this. All who were asked took up the invitation despite each being very busy. They sent us through their prayer last evening on video and we collated it. The end result is something that we will look back on in time as another very positive moment for us all.”
He thanked those who gave up their time to take part in the video, adding: “It shows that love will always find a way.”
You Tube at –
[[] https://www.limerickleader.ie/video/news/542713/watch-limerick-unites-for-comforting-prayer-of-solidarity.html ]
Limerick Leader.May 15, 2020
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