letter to the editor

‘Imagine’ a National Day of Prayer for all

Mon, 04/30/2018 - 4:30pm

Dear Editor:

The First Continental Congress established a long-standing American tradition in 1775 by declaring a National Day of Prayer.

On March 30, 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer: “The awful calamity of civil war … may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins … we have forgotten God … we have vainly imagined … that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own … it behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins.”

On April 17, 1952, Congress and President Harry Truman established the annual National Day of Prayer by federal law. Truman stated that “… In times of national crisis, when we are striving to strengthen the foundations of peace … we stand in special need of Divine support.”

And these days, believe it or not, we still have a National Day of Prayer (May 3), so make the most of it: forget John Lennon’s silly lyrics (“… there’s no heaven ... No hell below us … Above us only sky … Imagine all the people living for today ... Imagine there's no countries ... No possessions … Nothing to kill or die for … No religion too.”) and pray to your chosen Higher Power for peace, prosperity, and the demise of all inherently violent political and religious ideologies that would attempt to destroy what we Americans have always stood for, and what we will always believe in.

Phil Molvar

Southport