Yvonne Ba­boolal

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the week of prayer now tak­ing place in the coun­try is a demon­stra­tion of T&T's be­lief in the su­prema­cy of God and that knowl­edge fills her with pro­found joy.She was speak­ing at the launch of the Na­tion­al Week of Prayer or­gan­ised by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion and the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T.

The event was prompt­ed by the shock­ing lev­el of crime and law­less­ness per­vad­ing the land. Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty Min­is­ter Rodger Samuel told the gath­er­ing of Bap­tists, Hin­dus, Mus­lims, Chris­tians and oth­er faiths that the pre­am­ble to the Con­sti­tu­tion states that T&T be­lieves in the su­prema­cy of God. "There­fore, it is es­sen­tial to turn back to God in times of trou­ble for supreme guid­ance," he said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the event was a recog­ni­tion of the val­ue of prayer as an im­por­tant com­po­nent in the lives of cit­i­zens."At a per­son­al lev­el, prayer has al­ways been im­por­tant to me. I urge every woman, man and child, to com­mit to dai­ly prayers for this week, and be­yond. Pray in what­ev­er way you know," she said."God, as our par­ent, knows us and ac­cepts our prayers when we do it with love and sin­cer­i­ty. When you pray from your heart, God lis­tens."

The prime min­is­ter said T&T is go­ing through a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od caused by greed, law­less­ness, a lack of re­spect for el­ders, the abuse of chil­dren and a fo­cus on ma­te­ri­al­ism."These are symp­toms of un­god­li­ness," she said."I ask you to re­flect on where this is tak­ing us and make a com­mit­ment to make prayer a part of your dai­ly fam­i­ly life."If we, as a na­tion, make that com­mit­ment, we would sud­den­ly see the ef­fect of prayer on our so­ci­ety.Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked the gath­er­ing to pray specif­i­cal­ly for six things:

�2 A re­duc­tion in crime

�2 For fam­i­lies to live in har­mo­ny

�2 Pro­tec­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment

�2 Na­tion­al lead­ers

�2 Har­mo­ny in di­ver­si­ty

�2 The spir­i­tu­al re­vival of all

The ses­sion be­gan with Ri­car­do Bharath Her­nan­dez of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ple ap­peal­ing to the "great spir­it" to de­feat all the neg­a­tiv­i­ty and sor­row in the land and to re­veal its root.Prayers were of­fered by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Catholic, Ba­hai, Or­isha, Hin­du and Mus­lim faiths.