Prayer Vigil to Be Held Wednesday for Charleston Church Victims

From Montgomery Community Media:

Montgomery County interfaith organizations are inviting residents to join them Wednesday in a vigil to honor the nine victims in the Charleston, SC, church massacre.

The Black Ministers Conference, County’s Human Rights Commission and the County’s Office of Community Partnerships will host the gathering at noon Wednesday, June 24, at the Silver Spring Civic Center.

According to an invitation sent online, the Rev. Mansfield Kaseman, interfaith community liaison wrote, “It is important that we come together in the spirit they modeled yesterday.”

“I look forward to being together this Wednesday at noon in Silver Spring for a prayer vigil as we hold one another in love and prayer, and organize to break the chain of such horrific and needless violence,” Kaseman wrote.

On June 17, nine people, participating in a bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, died after a 21-year-old gunman opened fire inside the church.

The Rev. Elwood Gray, president of the Black Ministers Conference of Montgomery County, wrote in email to MyMCMedia that holding the vigil is important to set “a call to action through transparency and solidarity with all segments of our diversified society.”

For those who may be unable to attend the vigil, Gray wrote:

“Please find time to rendered a pray/moment of meditation on the behalf of the victims, their families and world in perspective that unmerited suffering is redemptive.”