— Archbishop of Baltimore William Lori
God and gracious God, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we offer You this prayer for our country, a country that is good, beautiful and beloved…and a country that is wounded, flawed, and always in need of Your help.
We are grateful for the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence…that all people are created equal…that they are endowed by You, our Creator, with certain unalienable rights…among these rights are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
May we never take these rights for granted or forget the responsibilities these rights bestow upon all of us, especially the need for our vigilance and our participation to preserve these sacred rights into the future.
We thank You, Creator God, for the countless natural gifts of this land we call home: for rivers and lakes, mountains and valleys, forests and farmlands, oceans and grasslands and the wide diversity of animal life these resources support and sustain.
Help us to remember this proverb from our Native American brothers and sisters:
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
May we continue to work untiringly for the preservation of our precious natural gifts for generations to come. We thank You for the people who were here long before most of our direct ancestors set foot on this land. We are grateful for their rich spiritual traditions and their deep respect for “the land.”
We ask forgiveness for the grave injustices these people endured, in some places, still endure, from those of us who came much later to this land. We thank You for the wide diversity of peoples who immigrated to this country throughout our 250 years and who continue to come today.
They came here fleeing religious persecution, wars, famine and violence of all kinds. They came here seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Sadly, we remember those who were brought here in shackles, enduring brutal and inhumane conditions. We ask forgiveness for what some have called our country’s “national original sin,” the sin of slavery.
We ask Your help to continue to remove barriers that prevent some of us from enjoying the rights our Constitution assures for all of us. May we as a nation incarnate more that word “United” in the official name of our country, the United States of America.
We thank you for the unique gift of our republic, our democracy, whereby the leaders of government derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We are justly proud of all those leaders throughout our history who served our country with personal integrity, courage, wisdom, justice, compassion and with a cooperative spirit. We ask for these same qualities in those who serve us in leadership today.
We thank you for the so-called “common man,” that is, for the countless ordinary men and women throughout our history who displayed qualities we like to say define “the American spirit,” qualities such as diligence, resilience, courage, hopefulness, generosity and care and concern for one another. May we who follow them in time, follow them in spirit by continuing the hard work of insuring the rights of all.
We pray also for all other nations today. May we always remember that our nation is part of a world community, a global community. We are grateful for the ways our country in the past has worked hand-in-hand with other countries to preserve peace, to build beneficial partnerships, to care for our common planet and to provide aid to those nations plagued by poverty, illness, food shortages and violence. May we continue our tradition of reaching out and sharing our wealth with our global community.
And finally, God, we pray that we may become the nation we pledge our allegiance to: “The United States of America: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Amen.
Written by Sister Melannie Svoboda, Sisters of Notre Dame
