Moving call for prayer by the head of NYPD. Asks all houses of worship to pray. Join the prayers, pass the word to your congregations. Post your prayers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or let us know.
Yesterday, NYPD Commissioner Seechant Sewell gave the bad news:
It’s with great sadness I announce the passing of Police Officer Wilbert Mora. Wilbert is 3 times a hero. For choosing a life of service. For sacrificing his life to protect others. For giving life even in death through organ donation. Our heads are bowed & our hearts are heavy.”
For many believers in the city, prayer should be the start before any action. It puts you in contact with the Maker of the world, clears your mind, focuses you on clear standards of discernment, places you in solidarity with the hurting, gives voice to our mourning, and provides deep motivation for clear-thinking, graceful action. We lost two policemen in Harlem, Prayer and meditation put one spiritually into the community where the violence took place. Unless one can suffer in the place of the hurting, one has little credibility to speak about how we can emerge out of the troubles into a more peaceful future. By all accounts, the two young policemen were exemplary for our own lives. Their names are Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora. Rookie cop Sumit Sulan somehow had the presence of mind to usher out of danger the mother of the shooter into the kitchen and then engage the killer in a point-blank shoot-out, winning the battle.
We at A Journey were stricken into the heart when we heard that the first young man to die was Jason Rivera. We were alarmed that maybe we had interviewed Jason when he was in high school. We also knew pastors like Reverend Marcos Rivera and worried that one of their relatives was killed. It turned out that their relatives were okay. But our hearts still hurt and mourn.
After the news of the shootings, Mayor Eric Adams asked for prayer: “At this moment it’s about prayers. We need New Yorkers to pray for the well-being of this officer that we should all be proud of,”
ABC-TV quotes Officer Mora’s music teacher who provided a hopeful note: “‘He was just such a warm, gentle, giving young man,’ John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Gregory Sheppard said. ‘We were singing a song called ‘Total Praise,’ and there was a line of text that said, ‘You are the source of my strength, you are the strength of my life,’ he said. ‘And while he was singing that, one of the singers from the row in front of him turned around and looked at him, and he beamed a huge smile. So I hope that peace and comfort that he found in that song is comforting him now.'”
On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams released his plan for combatting the violence in the city. “We pray for all the victims of violence and their families who are suffering, but we are going to do more than pray — we’re going to turn our pain into purpose. Public safety is my administration’s highest priority…,” the mayor said at the press conference.
