[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H660]
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:
  From the blood-stained lintels, You, Almighty God, led the Jewish 
people through the doors of freedom to the desert. By the Spirit, Jesus 
was led into the desert to discover You in prayer and fasting.
  Be with the Members of Congress and draw them into the emptiness of 
imagining and desire where You, our mysterious Lord, always siren Your 
people. Total dependency upon You, symbolized by the desert, either 
lifts one beyond present blindness or drowns one in the abandonment of 
spirit.
  As You lead the leaders of this Nation and other nations forward, may 
the American people follow with all their struggling questions of 
faith. Bring peaceful agreement to the holy and ancient lands of the 
Middle East in Your own way, in Your own time, by Your own direction.
  In You we place our trust, now and forever. Amen.

                          ____________________