Interreligious Prayer for Peace on the UN Day of Peace 2014 in Munich, Germany

n the occasion of the international Day of The UPF with its consultative status at the ECOSOC of

O Peace of the United Nations the Munich UPF the UN feels responsible to support the endeavors for invited to an interreligious prayer for peace. peace of the secretary general. We all thought to pray is that what we can do After that the Rom. Cath. theologian Gottfried now in this troubled world situation, and it is Hutter, expert of the Middle East, explained to the always good as a powerful means of action, audience, Catholics, Buddhists and Unificationists, and not only to calm down our own consciousness. the sheer unfathomable situation of the local Islamic world, its historic roots, development through the centuries and its present circumstances. This helped the participants to get a better understanding. Dr. Alfons Wellenhofer of the Munich UPF spoke about the immense power of prayer. Excerpt of his talk: Praying produces a spiritual energy we can help others with, in order to influence things for the better, e.g. peace…. Through praying we can bring down heaven to earth, the good spiritual world and the blessings of God. Ms Gisela Münster, Rom. Cath. theologian shared with us a beautiful prayer of the French writer Saint- Exupery. And Mrs. Jung-Ja Holm, speaker of the Korean Spirit & and Culture Promotion Project and Buddhist, shared with us her experiences with the Buddhist ‘Diamond Sutra’ and how its content can lead to internal peace. She emphasized the importance of considering everybody, friend or enemy, a Buddha, you can always learn something from. The program was enriched by the inspiring songs of musician Gianni Scarcella. Each speaker lighted a candle for peace and finally we ended our gathering with a joint payer. After words of introduction to the topic of the By Robert Bentele moderator first of all the short speech of the secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, was read.