The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns joined interfaith partners and civic leaders in honoring the National Day of Mourning and Lament on June 1, 2020.
On Monday, June 1, at 12 p.m. EDT, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns joined the virtual Interfaith Service for the National Day of Mourning and Lament to commemorate the loss of 100,000 lives due to COVID-19 in the United States.
“As people of faith, we cannot allow this grim number to go unnoticed,” said Susan Gunn, director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns.
“I pause in prayer today for those who have died from COVID-19 in the United States and throughout the world. We are overwhelmed by the number of the dead – 100,000 in the United States and many thousands more around the world. This disease not only has taken too many lives, it has exposed the rot in social structures meant to protect the sanctity of life and promote life with dignity. At the root of much of the rot is racism,” Gunn said.
“I cannot pray for the dead today without naming George Floyd. While he did not die from COVID-19, he died from the destructive and persistent evil of racism that is the original sin of the United States and that adds fuel to the spread of the coronavirus and its misery and death. I am horrified and outraged by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, just weeks after other horrific acts of violent racism in Kentucky and Georgia. The evil of racism that resides within hearts and social structures in the United States led to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many people of color in the United States. And it is the evil of racism that brings unequal suffering of COVID-19 to black and brown communities across the United States and throughout the world.
“I pray for those who have died of COVID-19 and for their families and friends, that they will find peace. I pray for our black and brown brothers and sisters in the United States and throughout the world, who experience sickness and death, job loss and food insecurity, marginalization and violence, at shocking levels during this pandemic, that they too will find peace. I pray that all people of faith and good will work to be instruments of that peace.”
