Community Missions, NOAH mark the National Day of Prayer

Group photo courtesy of Community Missions Communications Manager Sarina Deacon.

Fri May 3, 2024 1:00 PM

Leaders want to hold a larger meeting in 2025

Community Missions of Niagara Frontier and the Niagara Organizing Alliance for Hope (NOAH) brought together local faith leaders Thursday – the National Day of Prayer – to begin planning a larger public event for 2025.

“The reason Community Missions is doing this is because last year there was a church in town outside of Niagara Falls that hosted a National Day of Prayer. … We started thinking about it and discussed it with our community and religious services committee, and we felt that we should have an interfaith event for the city of Niagara Falls, through churches in the city of Niagara Falls,” said Rev. . Mark Breese, the agency’s secretary and vice president of faith services. “And so the plan was to organize a public event, but that didn’t work out. So we grabbed breakfast as standard so we could have a chance to have a conversation about how we might set that up next year.

“That’s why we’ve invited you here, so that we can have a chance to pray together for a moment, share a meal, break some bread together and then have a little discussion about what we can do next year to organize a public interfaith event to mark the occasion. of the National Day of Prayer so that we can do these different things to bring our city together.”

The Rev. Mark Breese speaks during a National Day of Prayer at Community Missions on Buffalo Avenue in the City of Niagara Falls on Thursday.

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About a dozen local leaders participated, along with representatives from NOAH and community missions. Prayers were offered from the Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh faiths.

Breese explained, “I’m a Christian. Jesus is my husband. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to say to someone else, “Jesus shouldn’t be your husband”; but I might say, “You might want to think about Jesus.” But in an interfaith context it is not about promoting your specific faith tradition. It’s about recognizing that we have all these different beliefs that are part of our community. And we all have common concerns – and we should be able to come together and talk about those common concerns without it having to be the moment of conversion or the moment of evangelization.

“We are all concerned about homelessness. We are all concerned about poverty. We all find the well-being of children important. We are all concerned about the government. We all care about all these things. There has to be ways for us to sit together and talk about these things in a common voice.

“For the National Day of Prayer, one of the most important things to focus on is that we live in the United States of America. The First Amendment guarantees us freedom of religion and worship; and there is no state religion. We can all do this, for all our separate traditions, and be protected in the process. That’s what I want us to focus on during the National Day of Prayer portion.

“We had five different blessings here. None of them said you had to accept the blessing as your blessing. It was that tradition that blessed them. I would like us to make a public display of that in some form next year, for the National Day of Prayer.”

Thursday’s participants are expected to meet again to plan a public interfaith event to celebrate the National Day of Prayer in 2025. Initial suggestions included hosting an outdoor gathering and moving it to the night to accommodate more people, especially students.

A sign in the agency’s common area read: “The National Day of Prayer takes place on the first Thursday in May. It has been celebrated annually since 1952 and offers people of all faiths the opportunity to join in prayer for our shared concerns.”

Joshua Maloni contributed to this report.

The Rev. Mark Breese speaks during a National Day of Prayer at Community Missions on Buffalo Avenue in the City of Niagara Falls on Thursday.

The Rev. Stewart Lindsay offers a prayer.

Community Missions noted: “The National Day of Prayer was established by the United States Congress in 1952 to ‘provide for the setting aside of an appropriate day as a National Day of Prayer.’ In 1988, the law was amended (Public Law 100-307) to specifically reserve the first Thursday in May. Each year, the President of the United States issues a proclamation declaring this day a National Day of Prayer. This year, President Joe Biden’s proclamation reads in part: “I call on the citizens of our Nation, consistent with their own faith and conscience, to give thanks for our many freedoms and blessings, and I invite all people of faith to to join me in asking for God’s continued guidance, mercy and protection.”

The organization noted: “Prayers were offered by Rev. Harvey Kelley of New Hope Baptist Church, Rabbi Ellen Franke of Temple Beth El, Beatrice Singh-Arnone of the Niagara Sikh Association, Anas Mangla of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, and Fr Stewart Lindsay of Holy Family Parish. Other faith communities represented included Potter’s House Christian Community Church, Bacon Memorial Presbyterian Church, Come As You Are Community Church, Word of Life Ministries, Damascus Baptist Church, Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, Central Niagara Catholic Family and Chosen Fellowship Church.”