Our Lady Mother of the Good Shepherd Cathedral, Djibouti

Interreligious dialogue is a necessary condition for peace in the world, and so it is a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities. – Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (On the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today's World), November 24, 2013.

Prayer is one of the important sources which can sustain and foster interreligious relations. On 10^th January, 2015 in the Cathedral of Djibouti an interreligious prayer was organized, to remember the recent terror attack in France and other parts of the world.

A few prayer intentions:

1) God our Father, We pray for the victims of terrorist attack in Paris; we also remember and pray for the victims of terrorism in Somalia, Kenya, Yemen, Nigeria, Iraq and other nations; give them eternal rest and console the members of their family. Let us pray.

Lord, have mercy on us (3)

2) Lord our God, give everyone the heart to respect and love his brothers and sisters that every nation flourishes in justice and peace. Let us pray.

3) Almighty Father, give us also the grace, to understand and respect that everyone has a right to think freely, everyone has a right to express one’s views without any compulsion and develop a sense of one human family with all the differences. Let us pray.

4) Most merciful God we thank you for the gift of creation in which everything has a purpose. Today we pray in a special way for men and women of good will, that enlightened by your Word, we may learn to live in harmony with each other despite our differences. Let us pray.

5) O God our creator, we pray for our world and in a particular way for people enslaved by prejudice and hatred: transform them and us into brothers and sisters, so that we may live in a reconciled world of justice and peace. Let us pray.

The congregation also prayed the ‘Peace Prayer of St Francis of Assisi’

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

"It is my ardent hope that Muslim and Christian religious leaders and teachers will present our two great religious communities as communities in respectful dialogue, never more as communities in conflict."- Pope John Paul II, Meeting with Muslim Leaders in Omayyad Great Mosque, Damascus, May 6, 2001.