MECC: Let us pray together as Christians and Muslims!

In response to the Higher Committee for Human Fraternity’s latest initiative, the Global Initiative for “Human Fraternity,” the Middle East Council of Churches renews its appeal for people to actively participate tomorrow, on the 14th of May 2020, in a day of prayer, fasting, invocation, and charity, each according to his/her own religion or sect or belief, asking God to help us overcome the Corona pandemic which is threatening the lives of millions of people, to inspire scientists to discover the appropriate cure, and to save the world from the medical, economic, and human consequences of this detrimental virus.

This initiative launched under the patronage of his Holiness Pope Francis and His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, was adopted by 17 faith-based Christian and Muslim organizations in Lebanon and the Arab World.

The Middle East Council of Churches sees this initiative as a new opportunity to confirm that “human fraternity” stems from our brotherhood in Christ and that spiritual solidarity can be lived through prayer and fasting.

Therefore, as an expression of our national unity, our religious social responsibility, and our global fraternal human solidarity, especially in these hard times that Lebanon is passing through,

Let us unite tomorrow, as Muslims and Christians, in one voice and one heart, and present our prayers and invocations to God Almighty, each in his/her own way following his/her own traditions, asking Him to preserve mankind and to help it overcome this pandemic, while joining the initiatives that will be launched by faith-based organizations and broadcasted in the media and on social media platforms.

We also reiterate the call of the Committee, “doubling our individual and institutional efforts in helping those in need and securing necessary aid for them, starting with donating a value of money equivalent to what we would usually spend during a non-fasting day to the people most in need around us, and inviting everyone – each according to his/her own abilities – to contribute in supporting humanitarian initiatives, and ending with the commitment of our institutions to multiply their efforts and increase their assistance in this field without distinction between people, since human fraternity forbids us to remain indifferent to those who are hungry or in need”. 

All the world today is in the same boat, so tomorrow, let us unite in prayer and ask God to have mercy on his children so that we survive this pandemic together!