[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 2 (Thursday, January 24, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H39]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Daniel P. Coughlin, offered the following 
prayer:
  Lord God, You created the world for all to share in a spirit of love, 
justice, and equality. We pray today for peace in our world. We unite 
our prayer with representatives of the world's religions who gathered 
today in the town of Francis of Assisi, desirous of becoming 
instruments of peace.
  We pray for peace, O Lord, and to pray for peace is to open our 
hearts to inroads of Your own power to renew all things.
  By the life-giving force of Your grace, O God, You can create 
openings for peace where we see only obstacles and closures. You alone 
can strengthen and enlarge the solidarity of the human family, in spite 
of recent tragic events, all human suffering and the endless history of 
division and conflict in our world.
  As we pray for peace, we pray for justice. We pray for a right 
ordering of human relations within and among nations and peoples.
  As we pray for peace, we pray for freedom, especially for religious 
freedom that is a basic human and civil right of every individual.
  To pray for peace, O Lord, is to seek forgiveness and to implore from 
You the courage to forgive those who have trespassed against us.
  At this time of world distress, give us new unfailing reasons for 
hope. Show forth in our day that genuine religious belief is an 
inexhaustible wellspring for mutual respect and harmony among peoples.
  Let our prayer and our faith in You, Almighty God, be our chief 
antidote to violence and conflict.
  Hope is truly instilled in our world today as each of us prays, 
``Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.'' Amen.

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