Community vigil
A gathering after a death or disaster, usually mixed and usually outdoors.
After a death or public tragedy, congregations often gather across religious lines. Clergy speak in turn, and candle lighting, music, the reading of names, and silence may carry much of the service, since these need no shared doctrine. Such gatherings aim at solidarity and mourning rather than theological agreement.
Vigils gather people after a violent death, a disaster or a public loss. They are typically outdoors, at or near the place it happened, and assembled quickly.
The elements are consistent across very different communities: candles, names read aloud, silence, and someone speaking briefly. Faith leaders often take part, but the gathering is rarely under any one tradition's authority.
Their function is closer to standing together than to worship, and people who would not attend a religious service attend them readily.
Does it have a text?
No fixed text. What is said is written for the event, and the reading of names is usually the part that carries the most weight.
When it comes up
Other forms of prayer in Interfaith
- The sequential interfaith service — Each tradition prays in turn, in its own words, rather than everyone praying one blended prayer.
- Shared silence — A held silence that everyone present can fill in their own way.
- Civic invocation — A prayer opening a public or governmental occasion, addressed to a mixed audience.
- Prayer in a multi-faith room — A single space used by several traditions, usually in a hospital, airport or university.
- Being present at another tradition's prayer — Attending prayer that is not your own, at a funeral, a wedding or a bedside.
This page describes a practice. It does not tell you how to perform it, or whether you should. Practice varies by region, community and household far more than a page like this can carry, and nobody credentialed in the tradition has signed anything here. The full dossier names its sources.