Members of eight different faiths gathered together at St. John’s Church on Feb. 7 to celebrate the theme of “Belonging Together” to participate in the Interfaith Prayer service put together by the Interfaith Core Team and Campus Ministry. 

The service began with calls to prayer from each religion. Each representative spoke in the faith’s native language when they recited the calls to prayer. “It really works out to have that authenticity to it,” Hadiah Kedwaii, a faith representative of Islam at the service and College of Arts and Sciences senior, said about the use of language. 

Each representative then read a selected scripture or prayer. The scriptures followed the theme of the service as they all had an underlying theme of unity and belonging. The service ended with a ceremony of lights. Each faith representative held a candle while campus representatives from various departments, divisions and organizations lit smaller candles from those held by the faith representatives. The rest of the candles held by attendees were lit before the lights dimmed. Light is a theme through many religions, so it was used at the ceremony to represent unity and belonging together.

“The ceremony of lights is the best part,” Mahek Shahid, a faith representative of Islam and College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said. “People cried at it last year. It is a really nice unity at the end.” 

The students who help put together this service all had similar reasons for being a part of it, but they all seemed to reflect in some way the same theme of unity and belonging. 

“The primary reason I did this it to put it out there that all religions have something in common.” Sahil Sandhu, who was a faith representative of Sikhism and College of Arts and Sciences junior,, said. “They are all from the same vein and we need to focus on what we have in common.”