 Well good morning everybody. Praise the Lord, amen. We are the New York Fellowship Choir and we're excited to be here with you. Can we just clap our hands and just give yourself a round of applause? Please welcome President and CEO. It is the Library's honor to once again host this important gathering. What a pleasure to come together with you all to celebrate the diverse faith community and your many contributions to our city. Similarly, for over 127 years the New York Public Library has been committed to offering free and open access to knowledge, to serving as a place where New Yorkers can share the ideas that knit our communities together. Inclusion, diversity, and respect have made our city the dynamic place we love. They have also made the library the essential institution of the day. These values saw us through the challenges of the last few years and continue to make us a safe place, the safe place for New Yorkers, hunger to learn. In a time when some would encourage divisions amongst us and would make ideas seem like threats, we welcome everyone to sit side by side with a desire to expand our knowledge and build a better, more connected world. Many of you are here to do that very thing this morning. We are all here together. And how fitting that we are here in this house, as we say, libraries are for everyone. When they deny the hard history, we present truth harder. When they ban books, we unban them. When they try to stop or block our programs or events, we defend New Yorkers and everyone's right to choose the programs and the way they want to attend and learn. We welcome you, Mayor Adams, with thanks for all you do, for all you have to fight against and all you are fighting for. And welcome all of you who also work every day to bring New Yorkers together and create communities of acceptance in our great and wonderfully varied city. Thank you for all you do. I'm so proud that the library's long-standing mission is aligned with your work, that we can gather here together as the foundation of civil society, that we will stay linked, arm in arm, open, and ready to serve the people that depend on all of us. We welcome all houses of faith, all people of all faiths. Welcome to this great house of learning for this great gathering of community. Blessings and good morning. Blessings and good morning, Lord. Thank you for allowing us to rise this morning with a safe arrival here, the opportunity to experience a brand new day. We're appreciative that we are still in your presence while here on earth. We're grateful that we are alive and exist. Thus, if we exist, you have a purpose for breath in our bodies and we thank you. May your purpose be fulfilled today with no derailment. This morning we congregate as believers in faith to trust you for your guidance through this day concerning our neighborhoods, our communities, our organizations, our businesses, and everything we are attached to. We ask that you release the angels to cover us, dwelling around us, fight for us in all of the needed locations, and stand guard through the day, deflecting all evil from our presence. Today, Lord, we seek your love to permeate through us in this gathering of peace. May your love saturate every bodily embrace in this building. May your love be infused in every conversation that is invoked among us, causing us to leave each other's presence better than when we had arrived. While we fill the seats with our bodies, become in this cheer, cause our presence and your presence to connect. Lord, we thank you for our fierce leader this morning, my name's St. Mayor Eric Adams. We thank you. We thank you for keeping his body healthy and strong. We thank you for his voice and his presence among the city. We thank you for a man with a heart that cares and seeks to listen to all citizens, regardless of ethnicity and faith background, as he represents the city and respects the faith of people. Bless all our political officials who represent us here in the city, Albany and Washington, D.C. We thank you for the meal that we have received. May it become nutritious to our bodies, making us healthy and strong throughout the day. And Lord, when we leave here, take us home safe and may the day be progressive, all of this we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. I can see all different faces and clothes here. They reflect diverse ethnic villages and cultural backgrounds, as well as various lifestyles, experience and interest. And I would describe this as a vibrant, inspiring and a harmonious art of living. And this is what I believe New York City stands for, and this is what we as religious leaders need to encourage and guide people to see the beauty of diversity, the joy of living together, and the infinite possibilities of evolving as if you love the community. Please join me in prayer. Karma Kaya Buddha, how grateful we are to share this moment, feeling one another's presence and peaceful support. In this time of division, may our hearts join in solidarity to heal the wounds of conflicts and hatred by realizing that we are all interrelated. In this time of confusion, may we restore our Buddha nature, our enlightened nature, the source of love and grace to defeat all the darkness and ignorance in our minds and in our society. May all the challenges we face today become transformed into a stepping stone for our society and for us to learn and grow. May we work together to build a peaceful coexistence with our fellow beings in Mother Earth. Karma Kaya Buddha, may all faith leaders, elected officials and mayor-adams be protected and guided by wisdom and compassion to lead us to peace and justice. May we deepen our spiritual cultivation so that we can transform delusion into wisdom, greed into generosity, resentment into gratitude, discord into harmony, and hatred into love. Whatever our hands touch, wherever our feet reach, wherever our voice resounds, whatever our minds wish, may all that lead us to peace and harmony. Good morning. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most beneficent. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. God said in the Qur'an, O mankind, we create you from the single peer of the male and female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other, know that you may displace each other. Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is he who is in the most trice of you. God command us in the holy Qur'an to respect all peoples regardless of their faith, race, or language. We are directed in more than one verses, not to transgress against the rights of the others. When Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa alih, migrant from the Mecca to Medina, he worked with the Christian and Jewish and respect their rights. He ordered his followers not to violate the rights of the people regardless of their religion. Another example we have is Islam, the successor of Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa alih, Imam Ali, which you can read about his story with the book Lost History, Michael Morgan. When he appointed his governor in Egypt, he gave him some advice. One of his advice, he told him, people are of two kind, either your brother in faith or you're equal in humanity. Our Lord, accept this from us. You are indeed to all hearing, all knowing. Our Lord grant us the good of this world and the hereafter, and protect us from the torment of the fire. Our Lord, do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord, we have believed, so forgive our sins and protect us from the torment of the fire. God bless America, God bless New York. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Let us reflect upon a short passage from Psalm 133. A song of the sense of David. How good and pleasant it is that brothers dwell together. Yes, it is good and pleasant when we live together as brothers and sisters. There is no greater blessing than being able to join around one table as one community. But while it is a blessing, it is not easy. When King David wrote this prayer, he knew the unfortunate truth. Brothers and sisters don't always get along with each other. Throughout the book of Genesis, brothers and sisters fight with each other. Cain murders Abel. Esau wants to kill Jacob. Leah and Rachel wrestle with each other. Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. And this is not just in the Bible. It is a reality in every place and at every time. To sit together as brothers and sisters doesn't come easy. For it to happen, we need to want it. We need to value it. We need to be committed to it. And I mention this because we live in a city of nearly nine million people. We live in this city, this wonderful city, where people from every religion and every country around the world live. And if we have nine million New Yorkers, we have nine million opinions, at least. And that's wonderful because diversity is a blessing. Yes, diversity is an incredible blessing, but only when people embrace it, only when they realize how good and pleasant it is that brothers and sisters well together. If we truly want this city to be a city of brotherhood, we need to do something about it. And that is my prayer today. Almighty God, inspire us to live together in peace and harmony. Show us how we can serve you together, as the prophet Safanya said, shoulder to shoulder, even when we find our own path. Open our eyes to recognize that unity is not the same as unanimity, but rather found in mutual respect. Teach us the lessons of love and may we follow the path of peace and goodness. Dear God, Master of the Universe, inspire us to dwell together as brothers and sisters, and may we continue to join together in the future in peace, joy, and happiness. Amen. Good morning, everyone. Buenos dias. To me it's an honor to be here this morning, and it's even a bigger honor to be able to pray in my language, which is Spanish. And I'm just going to give everyone in the room a little secret. If you did not know it, when we get to heaven, the only language that is going to be spoken is Spanish. Amen. So I suggest we stop practicing it for now. Amen. I declare in this moment a prophetic word about our home, and I pray for our mayor, Mayor Adam, thank you and I bless your administration. I bless everyone who has been elected to work under the administration of our mayor, and I declare in this moment a prophetic word, 29-2. When justice is in authority, the people are happy, but when injustice is resisted by the government, the people rise. Dear God, I declare in this moment and I declare that our mayor, that our time here in New York has arrived. I declare that our mayor is a fair man, a man who will not govern, a man who has been pierced in the heart of God. I bless our mayor, Mayor Adams, in this day, and I declare that you bless him, that you prosper him, my lord, that you give him health, that you raise him, that you bless him, and I declare in this morning, Jeremiah 29-11, that he says the word, that his plans, that his thought is to bless him, to prosper him, that he blesses him, that he be the plan of God, that he be the purpose of God, that he be declared in our city, in New York, in every county, in every corner of our city, that he be the plan of God, that he be executed in this city, and now I pray for my passion, and I pray for the migrants who are going through to reach our city, I pray for every migrant who is coming, who is crossing, my lord, that you bless him, and that we, the citizens of New York City, can have compassion, that we can bless those who are coming to this city, that we can bless them with our goods, my lord, and that we do not raise them as newbies, as men and women of this city, to be able to help all the migrants who are coming to our city, and now I pray, my lord, concluding with this prayer, asking, my lord, that you do not help people of compassion, my lord, men and women of faith, my lord, that we can conclude at this moment, that we seek to know the truth of your word, and to find a common ground between all the many traditions and religious leaders, and to recognize that we share a common humanity, and to be able to advance in this year, and to be able to bless every citizen of our city, my lord, bless our city, bless our government, our leader, that you have raised a fair man, and I bless the city of New York, in the name of Jesus, may God bless you, people. Good morning and namaste to everyone. I ask us to join in a very simple prayer this morning. O divine lord, this morning we pray that you do not keep us in the phenomenal world of unreality, but make us go towards the reality of the eternal self. Do not keep us in the ignorant state of darkness, but guide us to the path of spiritual knowledge. Do not keep us in the world of mortality, but make us go towards the world of immortality, self realization. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, may peace be with all. Thank you. Makora Haim, O God, source of life, creator of heaven and earth, in all its array, and creator of the first human being, Adam, from which we are all, all of us assembled here today, all of those who live in our city, from we are all descended from that first human being. May you grant us the ability to celebrate the diversity in this room and in this precious city of ours, people of all faith and colors, of all genders and sexual orientations, people striving to live lives of purpose and meaning, of freedom and dignity, of love and happiness. May we as leaders of all faiths express our commitment to the Holy Blessed One through our commitment to building a community in a city in New York that is most concerned about those in the margins of our society, those with no homes, no families, no citizenship, those who are vulnerable in all kinds of ways, physically, mentally and spiritually, those who lack food and safety, those who are more likely to end up in prison than in a job because they live in poverty or because of the color of their skin. May we have the audacity to dream of a city under Mayor Adam's leadership that is thriving, affordable, equitable and safe. May our city be filled with song and art and creativity and be a place that unites people from all nations in its dynamism and it being a destination to go for discovery, ambition and exploration. In these challenging times with so much uncertainty and violence and polarization in our world, may God give us the strength and resilience to have a vision for our city and then put our hearts and hands together to work on it, to make it a reality. Let us not be cynical. Let us not become complacent. Let us not be content with what is. Let us fight for what ought to be. This week in the cycle of the reading of the Five Books of Moses, we read of the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol, having a sign across his forehead that says, Kodesh Lashem, holy to God. May we see the holiness in each other and all those who live in our city and use our own service as leaders, not only for the good, but for the holy. Amen. So may it be. Infinite source of goodness, help us to see the good in ourselves, in others and in the world around us. Teach us to cultivate a discerning mind, to know right from wrong and to listen into love and forgiveness. Guide us to walk in your ways with integrity ever faithful to the promises our forebears made and may your come say new amen. Show us kindness on this day today. Give us strength God. It's indeed a wonderful morning and we have many things that we can give praise and say amen to our Creator for today. This interfaith breakfast has started approximately 20 years ago. We know that for a few years because of COVID we could not convene, but we are blessed today so that we can convene as one united voice. I officially welcome you and I thank our partners on Pastor Monroe's. I know you are here and Pastor Cabrera and Pastor Sargato and all of the members of our interfaith team worked so hard under the leadership of our Mayor Eric Adams to pull this event together. We know in government many times it's said that one has to separate church from state, but we have an administration that doesn't believe in that. We have a Mayor who you will hear from shortly who is definitely one of the chosen. He believes in what the faith-based community can do in partnership with government. He knows that all of the great initiatives throughout the course of our United States, if you look back at our historical plights and the goodness that has happened as a result historically in our country has always been driven by faith-based initiatives. When we look at our city we know that the former Congress member was a minister, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. He worked tirelessly to ensure that one of our hospitals in Harlem, hospital was able to integrate and bring in black doctors and black nurses. He fought valiantly to ensure that our train stations hired blacks as well. During the 20s when New York City was in a depression as a young man before he even entered the faith-based community he took shoes off of his own feet and coats off of his own back and gave out to the community. This has been the model of faith-based leaders. We have with us the illustrious Reverend Daughtry who has been a part of the civil rights movement from day one basically and still is. We know the power of the faith-based community. We have Rabbi Patasnik in the audience who has worked hand in hand with all communities to ensure that right is given to all. People are treated justly and fairly. So we know that in government we need our faith-based leaders. We need our chaplains. I'm a chaplain. How many chaplains are in the house? We need our chaplains to ensure that the good work done in government is coupled with faith. We know that our young people need to lean on the creator so that they can understand the values of being a person of faith regardless to whatever one's ethnicity is or one's religious affiliation. There are certain things that we all have in common. We believe in doing the right thing by our people. We believe in being honest. We believe in not stealing. We believe in not killing. We believe in doing everything that is good and just and that's what's important and this morning's breakfast lends to that. So our mayor as one of your team members who is a member of clergy, I'm on the lowest rung but I'm still a member of clergy, we thank you for finding it prudent and just to convene us. We find it prudent for you to understand the value of church and state. We thank you for when the naysayers were yelling at you and screaming at you and saying, oh forget about clergy, I was there I know. And you said, nah, you know your way. Nah, I'm not doing that. I was brought up in faith. My mother was on her knees so he knows and he understands. So I asked my brothers and sisters in clergy to keep us, our administration uplifted. We need the prayers. We believe in the power of prayer and we know the work of prayer. We also, yes, amen. Reverend Anthony, one of my mentors is in the house. We also know that when we pray in partnership, it sends a very clear and a direct message. And when we pray in unison, there's nothing better. So again, I welcome you. I thank you for all of the hard work that you do for our glorious city. And I humbly ask you that you continue because I already know you're doing it to pray for our administration. Every last single person in our administration, starting with our valiant leader, Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you. Please welcome the mayor of the city of New York, Eric Adams. Thank you. Thank you. It is clear that all of you are new because if you weren't new, you'll know the rule. You don't stand for me. I stand for you. I stand for you. But I am going to ask just people I have grown to adore and just love so much. I'm going to ask my team to stand up those who's in administration, Sue Adonis, Ed, Fred, this amazing team. You heard from my chief advisor, but also I have here my amazing chief of staff, Camille. I don't know if she is here. My first deputy mayor and just an amazing, amazing, amazing team. And I just cannot thank them enough. And I want to thank Dr. Marks for opening the library to allow us to come in. And a long time friend, Iris is here also. Congratulations. I saw your husband. He said you got a new grandchild. Congratulations to you as well. And just all of you who have been with me on this amazing journey for so many years. And I want to just touch on a few items and then allow us to really exchange greetings with each other. And I thought Pastor Pastora Rodriguez, what I do often that I would encourage you to do is to go into houses of worship that do not speak the language that I'm familiar with. If it's some I'm speaking Spanish or Greek, Coptic church or Sikh temple, go into those houses of worship and you will begin to fully understand how God do not speak with us in language. He communicates through our hearts. And I did not have to be fluent in Spanish to know what you were saying to me and understanding road of it. But this is an important time. And I say it over and over again when I wake up, it scares me that I'm not scared. I just, I do not wake up one day believing as mommy would say, baby, you got this, you know, New York is we got this. We got this. And you have to really transform from reading to believing. Regurgitate in a scripture or the Quran or a religious text is not believing. It is reading. And when you have gone through what I have gone through, you have to say to yourselves, there is no way that the creator has taken me this far to leave me. It's just not possible. The creator had the creator has so many times to leave me so many times to abandon me. But she has not. And I talk about this often that I want to share with this group. You know, when I was growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, I was learning how to box. And every time I would get in the ring, I would lose the fight. And my trainer will say, Eric, the problem is you leave your best fight in the gym and you're supposed to take it into the ring with you. And that is what has happened to many of us. The synagogue is the gym. The church is the gym. To seek temple is the gym. The mosque is the gym. You are there for training. You're not there to leave your best worship in the gym. Because if we are bringing our best fight in the ring, we would not have homeless in this city. We would not have a crisis of domestic violence. We would not have children because when we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools. So the reflection point of today when we do an analysis of these and you get coming together is to state are we leaving our best fight in the gym? Are we finding ways to really take what we took in the gym and bring it into the real fight? Because the fight is in the Bronx where gun violence is moving to a level that is frightening for all of us. The fight is in Brooklyn in the Army terminal where we have several hundred young people, men who want to experience the American dream. The fight is in our senior centers where our elders are dealing with the issues of loneliness and no one is there to comroll their hair or put oil on their feet or just to sit down and communicate with them. The fight is in our shelters where if you grow up in a shelter, you are less likely to graduate from high school and if you don't educate you will incarcerate. The fight is in the foster care, six to seven hundred aged out every year. They're more likely to be homeless, unemployed, mental health issues. That is the fight. That's the gym. That's the gym. And I know so well about what it's like to take your practice in the gym to actually implement it in your life. I tell a story all the time growing up in our small storefront church. We used to call it the cheers church. Everyone knew your name and everyone was glad you came. It wasn't big, it wasn't elaborate. Two services, you know, Reverend Daughtry, you know, we went out day, take a break, come back at night. We would come back in the evening, in the middle time, you eat mom couldn't afford to feed these six of us. And those elders, those women of the church, who delivered food to our house. And then just to look in the boxes and notice that the boxes were open, half a box of spaghetti, half a box of cheese crackers, half a jar of oatmeal. And they didn't have money to buy us groceries. They gave us half of what they had. So the problems of today, they're not new. Our response is not old. Because the old response is what I remember during Easter time, having the neighbors come together and leave six pairs of shoes and slacks on our back porch. I remember the old response of Thanksgiving leaving canned goods in a turkey on the back. I remember the old response of Christmas time wrapping up gifts. I remember the old response of just slipping $50 under the door and tell Mommy it was all right. I remember the old response, we become so modernized that our new response is to act like we don't see the despair that people experience in every day. We've become so hip, so cool, so Instagram-ish, so Facebook-ish, so Twitter-ish that we have tick-tock our way out of the humanity that we've always known. Then we say to ourselves, you know, this is what I find interesting, Sue. We say to ourselves, what's wrong with these children? Like, what's wrong with these kids? Let me tell you something about being a child. Children look for indicators that are they moving in the right direction. You ever see a baby when all of a sudden they're doing something wrong and they look over and peep at you to see what's going on? Now when they peep over to see if they're doing something wrong, the parents are doing the same thing of what it is to be a parent. Be honest about it. Our children are getting up in the morning, on their way to school, they're stopping at the local bodega and they're getting gummy bears that's laced with cannabis and they're sitting in the classroom and we're asking why can't our children read and write, why don't they behave. We are destroying our next generation, destroying them. And we say over and over again, we need to build a world that's better for our children. No, we need to build children that's better for our world. And we have to be honest about that. And it means instilling in them some level of faith and belief. Ingrid was so right. Don't tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can't separate my belief because I'm an elected official. When I walk, I walk with God. When I talk, I talk with God. When I put policies in place, I put them in with a God-like approach to them. That's who I am. And I was that when I was that third grader. And I'm going to be that when I lead government. I am still a child of God and will always be a child of God. And I want to apologize about being a child of God. It is not going to happen. We need to stand up for that. That is what has happened. And we need to be that every day. And watching Pastor Rodriguez, you can just watch her and see God. And we need to ask ourselves, do people see God in us? Do they see God in us? When you walk in a room, do people feel as though I've just been in the presence of God-like? When you sit down and make decisions, do people feel as though I've just been in the midst of a God-like feeling? Like how are people feeling when they're around each other? Because we are so caught up in the physical presence of individuals that we do not represent or understand the anatomy of your spirit. You cannot change the anatomy of your spirit because of the perfume or the suit or the tie you are on. If you have a spiritual ugliness, it will show itself from the inside out. And there may be some physically attractive people, but they are emotionally ugly. And you feel their ugliness every day and mean and nasty, just surrounded with all of this pain and want to be painful to you. And then get upset because you know how to smile. Blessings. That's what this moment is about. That's why we're doing this. And I know I say this, I talked to speech before and I want to just say it again because I just love this analogy, this sponge. Some of you have heard it, but I want everyone to hear it. Rushing out of my door, knocking over glass of water, I took the sponge and wiped up the countertop. And what happens when you feel the liquid in the sponge is saturated? In order to get that saturation out, you have to do what? You got to wring it out. We are saturated with so much to spare. Every day or day, you can't pick up a paper without someone reminding you of the negative parts of our lives. You mean people every day and all they're doing is telling you what's wrong with you. All they're doing is telling you, you no longer look this way. You no longer talk this way. How bad you are. Listen to the negative sounds everywhere you go. Today is the day. We got to wring it out. You're not going to be able to receive the purifications of God's blessing if you keep your sponge saturated. Some of our souls are so saturated with despair and harm and pain. Today I'm saying to you wring it out. Wring it out. You can't receive what these imams, what these pastors, what these rabbis, what they're giving you if you're so saturated with so much to spare. Wring it out. Take a moment to start your day breathing. Start your day meditating. Start your day with self affirmation. Leave signs on your mirrors and on your windows of how beautiful you are and how God has not finished with you yet and how you're going to overcome. That's how you start the process of wringing out all of that negativity that you receive throughout the day. Before you go to sleep, wring it out. Say a prayer. Read a scripture. Listen to a positive quote. Do something kind for yourselves. Then when you wake up in the morning and start your day, start your day wringing it out. Say something kind to you. Tell people if you're going to bring me pain, bring it somewhere else. Bring it out. You will never be who you ought to be if you carry it around a saturated sponge of despair. You've got to wring it out. And then when you meet people in your life and you see they're bringing all of that drama, tell them, baby wring it out. Wring it out. Because we have to be reminded of that sometimes. And we've done so much together. But we're ready to take it to the next level. That's the moment we're here. Here are my three asks of you. One, breaking bread, building bonds. The 300 people we have in this room, our goal is to have 1,000 dinners across the city. 10 people at each dinner. No two people come from the same group background ethnicity. And to do something revolutionary, talk to each other. Share your cultures. Why do you worship on certain days? Why do you eat certain foods? What does Passover mean? What does duality mean? Why do you wear a turban, a kuffy, a yarmulke? Why do you pray several times a day? What is the sounds of the sirens in Williamsburg? But just talking and learning from each other. Because then the thousand turns into 10,000 ambassador doors for peace. And then the 10,000 people have another 10 dinners. And it's become a force multiplier. Because the real issue we have in this city is our failure to communicate with each other and know each other. It is a Shakespearean tragedy sometimes when I'm moving throughout the city and I'm in the midst of some of you. And I'm saying, wow, people don't experience this. When I walk into a Sikh temple or sit down at a sukkah or go into a Diwali celebration. Do you know how many people in this city have never left the geographical boundaries of the neighborhood they live in? And the geographical boundaries of the mindset, they only know people that look like them, talk like them, eat the same food, do the same things. That is a Shakespearean tragedy. An anti-Christopher Columbus theory, believing if you leave your intellectual thought process, you're going to fall off some type of global planet. No, expand the beauty of this diversity. This city is so diverse and so much to offer. And you walk away with a healthy understanding. Let's do these dinners. Let's commit to a dinner, even if we do one dinner each in this room. That's 3000 dinners. The second thing is we want to communicate with you directly. We don't want other people telling our story. We want you to know the wonderful things that we are doing and the resources that your constituencies have available. People are not even aware of what we've done with childcare. Earn income tax credit. Your constituencies that are struggling right now can get hundreds of dollars back because of the success we've had in earning income tax credits. We want you to be part of that communication to give them the help you need. You have people among your group who are eligible for SNAP and WIC and seniors who are eligible for SCREED to keep their rents frozen so they don't have to lose the homes that they're in. But you're not getting that information. So we put in place a system where we want to communicate with you directly. We want you to sign up for that because the bearer of bad news is not looking to bring good news. And there are too many people who are professionals at bringing bad news because there's something exciting about bringing bad news to people just as an emotion of happiness is an emotion. An emotion of despair is also an emotion. And there's a lot of people that enjoy the emotion of despair. We need to now surround ourselves with those who enjoy the emotion of happiness. Sign up and be a part of spreading the good news. Affordable housing summit we were successful. Let's keep doing it. I want my faith-based leaders to be part of the housing that we're building. Mental health. What is the best way to deal with the mental health crisis we have than connecting people with the faith-based institutions in our city? Yes, we have professional operations that's doing this. And they have a role to play. But to stabilize it, we must have communities. That is the key to identifying when someone is going through a crisis to give them the assistance they need when they're part of a community. Do you know close to 50% of the people on Rikers Island are dealing with mental health illness? They should not be incarcerated. We need to find a better pathway to deal with the mental health crisis in our city. When you put it all together, put us on the pathway. And I'm excited about the tomorrows. And I see the excitement every day when I see you in the partnership that we've developed, as Ingrid stated, for many years ago. I'm here because of the faith-based institution. You do not take this journey on your own. I strongly believe in all my heart. God said I'm going to take the most broken person. And I'm going to elevate him to the place of being the mayor of the most powerful city on the globe. He could have made me the mayor of Topeka, Kansas. He could have made me the mayor of some small town or village somewhere. He stated that I'm going to take this broken child, this individual who is the epitome of the mistakes a human being can make in a lifetime. And I'm going to elevate him to the most important city in the country. There's a lesson in that. Far too often, we miss the lesson when God sends it to us. So when you can go from being where I was to where I am, we need to use it as an example for all of our children. If they were incarcerated, tell them your mayor was incarcerated. If they have a learning disability, tell them your mayor has a learning disability. If they are living in homeless shelters, we move from household to household until mom was able to stabilize, and even then it wasn't stable. Your mayor lived in that place. If it's domestic violence, he lived in a domestic violence situation. Let me be the living example that God has put in front of us to understand just because you're dyslexic, arrested, rejected, you still could be elected and be the mayor of the city of New York. That's only God. That's not man. That's only God. And so today, we proclaim that this city, New York City, is a place where the mayor of New York is a servant of God. Thank you. Continue to pray for us. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, and you may be seated before we never want to leave without a benediction. The benediction is the most important part of our breakfast. The mayor is going to be here, and he's not leaving. So I want to thank, first of all, all of you as you are seated, as the mayor comes back to his seat. You may be seated, everyone. We really want to thank all of you for coming today, and I want to really thank Mayor Adams for his commitment to the faith community. It's very important to understand in which New York City, again, we don't want to be a city that is so less city, not just about buildings, but about people. So we really want to thank Mayor Adams for expanding the Office of Faith-Based and really doing that work. Thank you again for that. In this work that we do with our Faith-Based office, really important to thank Commissioner Fred Kreisman and CAU for really supporting our office with personnel and resources. We want to thank you again, Commissioner Kreisman and your team, for really supporting the Faith-Based office as well. Thank you again. We have a few things to say to the faith leaders that's very important. As you heard, the mayor, as he spoke, a couple of things that's important. Number one, on your table in front of you, very important is our plan to support migrants coming into New York City. We really want to thank all of the faith community who have really stepped up and really helped New York City from the Faith-Based approach to really house migrants, and not only migrants but unhoused New Yorkers. And so this is nothing new to all of you. So I really want to thank the faith community who has stated that we are the most diverse religious city in America, and it is definitely represented to most extent here today in this place. One last thank you that we want to give not only to our sponsors who made this day possible, but also to really thank to our team at the Office of Faith-Based, Reverend Cabrera, Angelica Perez, and Faith Henderson. Thank you. One of our main tasks in the Faith-Based office is to maintain relationships with all faiths to make sure that number one, that every single faith in New York City have access to government resources. It doesn't, based on, we don't discriminate against any type of religious institutions. And so we have been working again throughout the year to support the toughest issues in New York City. Number one, we want you as faith leaders not to only engage with us once a year at this time, but the strength of our office, the strength of the work that we do, is based on our monthly individual meetings that we meet every month. Because faith leaders have to really deal with the challenges when it comes to gun violence. When we see even this week the amount of funerals that are being, as happening, faith communities are really caring for the families. We're really working with young people. You have after-school programs. We work with D.Y. City for the first ever to connect you with the resources. We are really working again to open up City Hall to understand that there is a connection between policy and people, and not just policy alone. The faith community is really the moral compass for City. And we want to thank the mayor for really giving us the avenue and the platform to be able to share your ILDs and your views of what New York City can be. So we are at a critical moment when it comes to mental health issues. We have had a few sign-on letters from clergy who talks about Rikers Island. We have all of the major issues that you can think about, what is affordable housing. In our role, it's not to prevent faith leaders to lose the prophetic voices in the City. It is that we want to let you know that the Mayor cares you and is always available to be with you, to speak, to organize, to disagree, to agree, to pray, to push, so that we can have a City again that all of us can truly live in and really do the work that is being done. On your table, we have really important, we want houses of worship all across New York City to adapt to shelter. It is called Love Dye Neighbor. It is this brochure that we have that if you are close to a shelter on House New Yorkers, we have over 50 congregations who are right now working on this plan to support migrants in the House, homeless individuals. And again, it should be done and it will be done and one through the faith community. And so again, I thank all of you and all of you in the administration, leaders and elected officials who were there here today. We are praying for you and we are continuing to be here for you throughout all the things that we're going to do. So again, thank you all so much. Thank you, Mosbis. Thank you, all of you who have come to join us for prayer. Today, what we're doing is stopping, reflecting as a city, to offer prayers and trusting God that he will hear the prayers in every language that is spoken today. Thank you again. I want you to stay in your place for benediction and then we'll have the choir who is going to sing a recessional song before you leave. So now we'll have the benediction. We are not only brothers and sisters in Christ. We are God's one holy creation and God lives in us. I am kindly asking you to stand for the benediction. Blessed is our God, always, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever and to ages of ages. Amen. In peace, let us pray to the Lord for the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls. Let us pray to the Lord for the peace of the whole world and for the unity of all. Let us pray to the Lord for our country, the president, all those in public service and for our armed forces everywhere. Let us pray to the Lord for this city, for our mayor, for every city and land and for those who live in them. Let us pray to the Lord. Lord, our God, whose dominion is incomparable and glory incomprehensible, whose mercy is immeasurable and love for mankind ineffable. Look upon us and upon this city in your loving kindness and grant to us and to those who pray with us abundant mercy and compassion. O Heavenly Father, the true light that enlightens and sanctifies every man who comes into the world, let the light of your countenance shine on us that in it we may behold the unapproachable light. Direct our steps to keep your commandments and bless the food, the drink and fellowship of your servants, for you are holy always, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Mayor Eric Adams, may God bless you, grant you many years to serve the people of this city. May the God who is full of mercy and love strengthen you and give you everything you need to do this beautiful and blessed work. May God bless our religious communities of this city and grant peace, love and justice to this beautiful community. Thank you very much. May God bless us all. You may sit down. Thank you very much.