Family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors of Quran Wesley Sims gathered at the site where he died of multiple gunshot wounds last June 3 to reclaim the site for nonviolence. The short prayer vigil, which the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Sisters of Mercy, and the Benedictine Sisters (Benedictines for Peace) lead, takes place each time a murder occurs in Erie. In addition to praying for the victim and their family, those gathered pray for the perpetrator and their family and for all of us in the city of Erie that we may find alternatives to violence to resolve differences or to express anger and frustration. At each vigil, we pray the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

O God, make me an instrument of your peace. 
Where there is hatred, let me sow love. 
Where there is injury, pardon. 
Where there is doubt, faith. 
Where there is despair, hope. 
Where there is darkness, light. 
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Maker, grant that I may not so much 
seek to be consoled as to console; 
to be understood as to understand; 
to be loved as to love. 
For it is in giving that we receive. 
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. 
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.