[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 52 (Wednesday, March 22, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H1307]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the 
following prayer:
  Hear the cries of Your people, O Lord.
  Out of the depths of their suffering, hear their voices, pleading for 
rescue from the hands of their tormentors for an end to the violence 
they endure from the hands of their oppressors and relief from the 
poverty they experience in both body and spirit.
  Let Your ears be attentive to the pleas that rise to You from across 
the globe from the innocent men, women, and children who are caught in 
the crossfire of the war in Ukraine and from the enemy's conscripted 
soldiers who are forced to fight a war that is not of their own making.
  Hear the voices of those who dare to speak words of peace and 
reconciliation into the winds of war and silence the rhetoric of false 
claims to the hegemony of property and the control of Your people.
  We wait for You, O Lord, to speak Your word. Countless wait on You to 
reach into their souls and give them reason to hope. More than those 
who wait in the darkness for the dawn, more than these, do we wait for 
Your power to redeem Your children.
  In Your steadfast love, save us from ourselves and from our 
inequities.
  In Your most holy name we pray.
  Amen.

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