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| What you need to know |
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| Suggested Proclamation for a Day of National Humiliation and Prayer |
Whereas, ministers in this nation
representing a wide cross section of
Denominations and Faith
recognizing the Supreme Authority
and just Government of Almighty
God, in all the affairs of men and of
nations, and recognizing the
important role played by Almighty
God in the founding of this nation
asks that we the people, of all faiths
and beliefs, unite as one in this
resolution, of a day for National
prayer and humiliation.
And whereas it is the duty of nations
as well as of men, to own their
dependence upon the overruling
power of God, to confess their sins
and transgressions, in humble sorrow,
yet with assured hope that genuine
repentance will lead to mercy and
pardon; and to recognize the sublime
truth, announced in the Holy
Scriptures and proven by all history,
that those nations only are blessed
whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by
His divine law, nations like
individuals are subjected to
punishments and chastisements in
this world, may we not justly fear
that the awful divisiveness of our
efforts to pass a health care plan for
this nation, may be but a
punishment, inflicted upon us, for
our presumptuous sins, to the needful
end of our national reformation as a
whole People? We have been the
recipients of the choicest bounties of
Heaven. We have been preserved,
these many years, in peace and
prosperity. We have grown in
numbers, wealth and power, as no
other nation has ever grown. But we
have forgotten God. We have
forgotten the gracious Hand which
preserved us in peace, and multiplied
and enriched and strengthened us;
and we have vainly imagined, in the
deceitfulness of our hearts, that all
these blessings were produced by some
superior wisdom and virtue of our
own. Intoxicated with unbroken
success, we have become too
self-sufficient to feel the necessity of
redeeming and preserving grace, too
proud to pray to the God that made
us!
It behooves us then, to humble
ourselves before He, Who is called
the Great Physician, to confess our
national sins, and to pray for
clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, I do, by this my
proclamation, designate and set apart
Thursday, the 26th day of November,
2009, which coincides with
Thanksgiving Day, as a day of
national humiliation, fasting and
prayer. And I do hereby request all
the People to abstain, on that day,
from their ordinary secular pursuits,
and to unite, at their several places
of public worship and their respective
homes, in keeping the day holy to the
Lord, and devoted to the humble
discharge of the religious duties
proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and
truth, let us then rest humbly in the
hope authorized by the Divine
teachings, that the united cry of the
Nation will be heard on high, and
answered with blessings, no less than
the pardon of our national sins, and
the restoration of our now divided
and suffering Country, to its former
happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto
set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.
| E-mailed to the White House September 10, 2009 |