[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Page 29904]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain, Father Paul Lavin, offered the following prayer:
  In the book of Ecclesiastes we hear:

A good name is better than ointment, and the day of death than the day 
      of birth.
It is better to harken to a wise man's rebuke than to harken to the 
      song of fools;
For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the fool's laughter.
Better is the end of speech than its beginning; better is the patient 
      spirit than the lofty spirit.--Eccl. 7:1-8.

  Let us pray:
  As this session of the Senate draws to a close, let the end of our 
speech be better than the beginning. Let the decisions we have made and 
the ones we will make in these closing hours reflect Your will and be 
pleasing to You.
  May the time we and our staffs spend with our families and with those 
we represent be really times of re-creation in Your Spirit, and may all 
of us return here safely.
  May the gifts of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unite us in faith, 
hope, and love, now and forever. Amen.

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