[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 9, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H3823]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page H3823]]

House of Representatives

  The House met at 10 a.m.
  The Chaplain, the Reverend Daniel P. Coughlin, offered the following 
prayer:
  Throw open the great doors. Let the standard bearers raise their 
flags. Mount the steps of this city built around the Hill, for he 
comes.
  Prepare the Rotunda. Command the military to stand at attention. Let 
the people of the Nation and the world gather, for he comes.
  Human mortality and dignity is framed for us at this moment, Lord, as 
a great man awakens from his sleep and enters Your new day.
  May both Chambers and all parties, rich and poor alike, with all our 
greatness and all our frail diversity, prepare ourselves to welcome the 
40th President of the United States. Echoes of Psalm 24 resound within 
us, O Lord, as we receive today the body of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
  As he rests in our midst, may the memory of his warm smile melt our 
differences with candor and humor. May the openness of his faith in an 
optimistic tomorrow become promise for us all. May the cold walls of 
indifference and superiority crumble before our eyes. Be with us, Lord, 
as he sheds the ``surly bonds of Earth'' and we prepare President 
Ronald Reagan and ourselves to touch Your face, O God. Amen.

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