Carisa Lee

Ro­man Catholics, Mus­lims and Hin­dus prayed and fast­ed for the na­tion yes­ter­day, a day dubbed “A Day of Prayer”.

RC Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don col­lab­o­rat­ed with the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (IRO) for the Day of Prayer and Fast­ing (April 8) for Peace and Hu­man De­vel­op­ment.

“We con­tin­ue to work be­cause this coun­try re­al­ly, re­al­ly needs the IRO, some­thing or some en­ti­ty to keep our peo­ple to­geth­er,” pres­i­dent of the IRO Pan­dit Lloyd Mukram Sir­joo said.

The day came while the three re­li­gions were al­ready wor­ship­ping and fast­ing for oth­er spir­i­tu­al rea­sons — Mus­lims, for the month of Ra­madan, Ro­man Catholics for Lent and Hin­dus for Chaitra Navra­tri.

But the IRO is made up of sev­er­al oth­er re­li­gions, all of whom were alert­ed about the day.

Pan­dit Sir­joo said when he got the call on March 8 for the Na­tion­al Day of Prayer and Fast­ing, he im­me­di­ate­ly agreed.

He said there are many things that the na­tion and, by ex­ten­sion, the world, has to pray for and while all is­sues/top­ics may not be cov­ered in one day, it was a start.

“The ques­tion of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, gen­der-based vi­o­lence… we have to have an all-in­clu­sive prayer to re­move all the neg­a­tive in so­ci­ety and when we pray, we should not be fi­nite with our own sit­u­a­tion here in Trinidad, we have to look at in­ter­na­tion­al­ly what is hap­pen­ing, we are still in the pan­dem­ic,” he said.

Every hour from 6 am to 6 pm yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the Ro­man Catholic Church prayed for dif­fer­ent top­ics which were an­nounced in church and on the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain’s Face­book page.

Dur­ing 8 am and 9 am, they prayed for church/re­li­gious bod­ies and the Gov­ern­ment, from 9 am to 10 am for the na­tion and the na­tions of the world and from 10 am to 11 am, for in­ter-racial and in­ter-re­li­gious har­mo­ny.

Vic­ar Gen­er­al Fa­ther Mar­tin Sir­ju said they al­so had a mer­cy hour, since it’s an im­por­tant top­ic for all three re­li­gions.

“We pray that we will be more mer­ci­ful to­wards each oth­er and I think if we ex­cel in mer­cy and just our coun­try will look much bet­ter than it is,” he said.

But some wor­ship­pers had their own rea­sons to pray and fast.

“Crime is a very wide thing es­pe­cial­ly in this coun­try…every day in the news you’re hear­ing that some­body is be­ing killed,” Nevan De­coteau said.

“I pray for peace with­in my soul and my sur­round­ing, I pray for peace to take over us in Je­sus’ name,” Mary Paria said.

The Vic­ar Gen­er­al said the day of prayer was not on­ly to of­fer de­vo­tion to God but al­so to give peo­ple hope.

“We’ve heard cer­tain ex­pres­sions many times like a failed state, the al­leged re­marks from the pres­i­dent of Guyana Trinidad and To­ba­go falling apart, this is our way of say­ing no,” he said.

He said T&T can’t give up and the least the coun­try can do is pray and act to­geth­er, which was done yes­ter­day.

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