Interfaith symbols are depicted on coloured cards on top of a wooden table

Walking Together in Peace and Harmony

Saturday 1st February 2025

This February, we continue our Jubilee of Jubilees series with the theme of Interfaith and Ecumenism.

To begin our focus this month, we share this opening reflection from Fr Paul Cannon, Episcopal Vicar for Dialogue, who looks back at Pope John Paul II’s call to “walk together in peace and harmony.”

Pope John Paul II invited representatives from other churches and world religions to come to Assisi on the 27th October 1986 for a day of prayer for peace in the world.

Those invited were asked to fast and pray for peace, which was a milestone in interreligious dialogue.

The presence of the representatives of world religions communicated a powerful symbolic message to the world – the spirit of prayer and non-violence. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, leaders of African and American Traditional religions, and Shinto took part in this event. The “Spirit of Assisi” continues to foster ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.

Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have continued to foster this dialogue, through similar gatherings in Assisi and in the Vatican.

At the outset of the 1986 day of prayer, Pope John Paul II clearly defined the form and context of the World Day of Prayer. He noted that “we gather to pray together but not to be together to pray.”

There were separated places of prayer for each religion. After the prayer in each religious group, all those invited then marched in silence to towards the lower square of St Francis for the concluding ceremony. Once gathered together in the square, each religion presented its own prayer, one after the other. On a later occasion Pope John Paul elaborated on the significance of the landmark day of prayer for peace. “Every authentic prayer is under the influence of the Spirit who intercedes insistently for us. We can indeed maintain that every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person.”

Pope John Paul said that the Assisi event will make the world become aware that there exists another dimension of peace and another way of promoting it, saying “it is the result of prayer, which, in the diversity of religions, expresses a relationship with a supreme power that surpasses our human capacities alone.”

The Pope also warned that “either we learn to walk together in peace and harmony, or we drift apart and ruin ourselves and others.”

In his closing remarks, Pope John Paul II said:

Pope John Paul II on interfaith: For the first time in history, we have come together from everywhere, Christian Churches and Ecclesial Communities, and World Religions, in this sacred place dedicated to Saint Francis, to witness before the world, each according to his own conviction, about the transcendent quality of peace. The form and content of our prayers are very different, as we have seen, and there can be no question of reducing them to a kind of common denominator. Yes, in this very difference we have perhaps discovered anew that, regarding the problem of peace and its relation to religious commitment, there is something which binds us together.

As we continue to journey through our Holy Year of Jubilee, we pray for peace and harmony in our world, and the grace to walk with one another – united in our differences – as one human family, bound together through a shared gift of faith.

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