National Day of Prayer

Tomorrow it National Day of Prayer. It is most important that we take time out to pray for this country of ours. If your church is offering a prayer service please plan to attend. If there is an opportunity for you to pray with others wherever it may be please avail yourself of this opportunity.

My parish of St. John the Baptist here in Newburgh is having a small meal and then we adjourn to the church for our prayer service and for a homily by our guest, Father Alex Zenthoefer. It's a real opportunity as a community to offer our petitions for this nation to the God who watches over us.

God has been so good to us! We have been blessed in so many ways. Though we certainly are not perfect and we have our faults this nation is built on a foundation of prayer. Though some would like to think otherwise, I truly believe that we are obliged by our giftedness to offer thanksgiving for what we have and ask for the Creator's intervention in all our needs. We have an obligation to serve this country in many ways. One of those ways is through communal prayer.

~~~^j^~~~

For the the freedom to
participate in communal prayer,
Thanks be to God!

Billy Graham's Prayer for Our Nation

'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!'

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, 'The Rest of the Story,' and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired. With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called 'One nation under God.'

Think about this: If you forward this prayer to everyone on your e-mail list or place it on our blog, in less than 30 days it would be heard by the world.

~~~^j^~~~

Thanks be to God