There were clerical collars and embroidered yarmulkes, prayers read in Spanish and Tamil, and a community brought to its feet by a guitar-strumming cantor, then brought to critical mass by a stirring soloist from the church.
Prayers read on Friday at mosques in the Sadr City area of Baghdad supported a truce between followers of the Iranian-supported cleric Moktada al-Sadr and the Iraqi military.
During a two-hour morning ceremony, with prayers read in Arabic and Coptic, the pope, dressed in an embroidered robe in a white, open coffin, was remembered as a "wise captain" who built bridges to Muslims and other Christian denominations as he spread the church's influence around the world.
In Europe, there was an elaborate programme, complete with prayers, reading Bahai holy Writings, music, video presentations, an abundance of varied foods, etc.
Aside from fasting from food and water, Ramadan also entails frequent prayers, reading from the Quran and engaging in community worship and meals.
Only mantras (prayers, reading, meditation) with a real sense of participation lead us to self-realization.
The first half opened with a Sanskrit prayer read by Ravi Shankar, followed by Indian music played by Shankar's daughter, Anoushka, and others.
The breakfast also featured a performance by Andrea Bocelli; a Cesar Chavez prayer read by Ken Salazar, the departing interior secretary; a closing prayer by Gabrielle Douglas, the Olympic gymnast; and other speakers from Capitol Hill.
"Go forth, revolutionary and loving soul, on your journey out of this world, in the name of God, who created you, suffered with you and liberated you," the prayer read.
It begins cinematically, with excerpts from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's D-Day prayer read gravely over period footage, then delivers a series of greatest-hits encounters across France, through Belgium, and into Germany.
An example of the traditionalesque would be the "Apache wedding prayer", read by a freelance multi-faith wedding minister called Joyce Gioia, when neither the bride nor the groom nor the prayer itself has anything to do with Apache culture (the prayer was invented for a Hollywood movie called "Broken Arrow").
