Local people of faith urged to join worldwide prayer for Middle East peace

Bishop David Zubik has asked all people of faith to join a worldwide effort to pray for peace in the Middle East on Tuesday, October 17.

“In the course of this past week, we have all watched the news of horrific violence in Israel and Gaza. Our Christian response to such events must always be to fall to our knees in prayer for peace,” he wrote in a letter to clergy in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The day of prayer is a response to a request from Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, together with all the hierarchy of the Holy Land, and people throughout the world to observe a day of fasting, abstinence, and prayer tomorrow.

Bishop Zubik has asked his clergy to make this part of their daily Masses tomorrow, to communicate the request as widely as possible to their parishioners for their own devotions and, if possible, to offer a time of Eucharistic adoration.

As Cardinal Pizzaballa wrote, “This is the way we all come together despite everything and unite collectively in prayer to deliver to God the Father our thirst for peace, justice and reconciliation.”

In Pittsburgh, interfaith prayers to end the violence in Israel and Gaza will also be central to the service for “Healing, Solidarity, and Prayers for Peace,” held on Sunday, October 22, 2023 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at Saint Paul Cathedral, 108 North Dithridge Street, Pittsburgh 15213.