Episcopalians and other Christians around the world responded with grief and humanitarian action to the magnitude 7 earthquake that devastated Haiti’s capital city on Jan. 12.

“Even under ‘normal’ circumstances, Haiti struggles to care for her 9 million people,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote. “The nation is the poorest in the western hemisphere, and this latest disaster will set back many recent efforts at development. I urge your prayers for those who have died, been injured, and are searching for loved ones — and I urge your concrete and immediate prayers in the form of contributions to Episcopal Relief & Development, who are already working with the Diocese of Haiti to send aid where it is most needed.”

The Rt. Rev. Mark J. Sisk, Bishop of New York, mentioned the thousands of Haitians who live in and around New York City.

“For any community an earthquake as devastating as the one that struck Haiti on January 12 would be a disaster on a massive scale,” the bishop wrote. “For the people of Haiti, already struggling with a level of poverty incomprehensible to most of us in the United States, it is truly catastrophic. I urge you to join with me in prayer for the dead and the injured, for those in Haiti who survive amid ruins, and for our Haitian brothers and sisters here in the Diocese of New York.”

Many bishops of Episcopal dioceses urged donations to ERD, and to other groups equipped to provide quick assistance.

“This past year several of our parishes have made trips there and our Diocesan ECW sent 100 percent of its outreach funds in 2009 to CHAP (Christian American Haitian Partnership) nutrition program to feed the hungry in this already poverty riddled country,” wrote the Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence, Bishop of South Carolina.

“I have also received an email from the Rev. Rob Dewey that he and Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy will be mobilized to assist in the recovery work. Likewise another ministry located within our diocese, and with important relationships with our parishes, is Water Missions International. They also have a team on the ground in Haiti to help restore clean drinking water.”

In a newsletter from the Diocese of North Carolina, the Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren of St. Mark’s, Raleigh, wrote a prayer that began: “God of all, on the day of your Son Jesus’ crucifixion, the earth shook and the rocks were rent: / We, your frail and finite creatures, cry out to you for help when the earth beneath our feet quakes / changing in an instant life as we know it.”

The Most Rev. Thabo Makgoba, the Archbishop of Cape Town, addressed suffering Haitians directly.

“My dear brothers and sisters in Haiti, as I sit in shock before TV pictures that are beginning to emerge, my prayer in this season of Epiphany is that the loving compassion and care of God will be made manifest despite and through the pain and suffering that afflicts you,” he wrote. “Our Lord counsels us to grieve with those who grieve, but also not to lose hope, knowing that in all things the One who shines an inextinguishable light into every darkness both desires and wills to act redemptively.”