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Dear Beloved Cathedral Community,
As we continue to process the horrific acts of violence that shook our city last weekend—and as I prayed aloud on Trinity Sunday—the compounding impact of such repeated and senseless acts weighs heavily on us all.
In this spirit, I want to share with you an ecumenical and interfaith statement that I have signed alongside my downtown Minneapolis clergy colleagues.
Together, we represent a multi-faith coalition of leaders serving more than 35,000 Minnesotans from congregations across this city.
Many of us have stood in sacred spaces—offering prayers in the chambers of the Minnesota House and Senate. We pray often for peace, for unity, and for the strength of our public servants. This week, we lift those prayers with particular urgency.
It is unimaginable that Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and Senator John Hoffman, his wife Yvette, and their daughter were targeted in an act of extreme political violence. We mourn alongside the Hortman family in their time of unspeakable grief, and we pray for full healing in body and spirit for the Hoffman family.
In this moment of deep national division and growing polarization, we stand united against the dangerous culture of hatred and fear that continues to take root. Violent rhetoric leads to violent actions. We must not grow numb to this depravity or allow it to become normalized. Together, we are committed to countering it wherever it arises.
As people of faith, we are called—as the prophet Jeremiah reminds us—to “seek the peace of the city… and pray to the Lord on its behalf” (Jeremiah 29:7). Across our traditions, our sacred call is to work for justice and reconciliation.
Our interfaith partnerships have strengthened our own faith journeys and deepened our collective resolve. These relationships are not only a witness against division but also a source of renewal in our pursuit of God’s justice and peace.
In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Yet, it does not bend on its own. It bends because people of faith, grounded in courage and compassion, bend it.
Downtown Clergy
As people of God—as Easter People—we gather not in denial of suffering, but in defiance of it.
We believe that love can rise from the ruins,
that light still breaks through,
and that Christ meets us even in the shadows.
In that spirit, I invite us to center ourselves and lift our hearts together in prayer.
Let us pray.
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son:
Look with compassion on the whole human family;
take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts;
break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love;
and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth;
that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
With hope and in peace,
Tim+
The Rev. Timothy M. Kingsley
Provost, Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral
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