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National Day of Prayer [1987]
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National Day of Prayer [1987]
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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Correspondence, White House Office of:
Records, 1981-1989
Folder Title: National Day of Prayer
Box: 81 (1987)
To see more digitized collections visit:
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digitized-textual-material
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Inventories, visit:
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/white-house-inventories
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/research-
support/citation-guide
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
Last Updated: 10/3/2023
THE 8 OF STATE THE UNITED
SEEL
National Day of Prayer, 1987
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
In 1952 the Congress of the United States, resuming a tradition observed by the Continental Congress from
1776 to 1783 and followed intermittently thereafter, adopted a resolution calling on the President to set aside
and proclaim a suitable day each year as a National Day of Prayer. At the time the resolution was adopted,
Americans were dying on the battlefield in Korea. More than 125,000 of our young men had been killed or
wounded in that conflict, the third major war in which our troops were involved in a century barely half over.
Members of Congress who spoke for the resolution made clear that they felt the Nation continued to face the
very same challenges that preoccupied our Founders: the survival of freedom in a world frequently hostile to
human ideals and the struggle for faith in an age that openly doubted or vehemently denied the existence of
the Almighty. One Senator remarked that "it would be timely and appropriate for the people of our Nation to
join in this service of prayer in the spirit of the founding fathers who believed that God governs in the affairs
of men and who based their Declaration of Independence upon a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence."
Human nature is such that times of distress, grief, and war-or their recent memory-impel us to acknowl-
edgements we are often too proud to make, or too prone to forget, in periods of peace and prosperity. During
the Civil War Lincoln said that he was driven to his knees in prayer because he was convinced that he had
nowhere else to go. During World War II, an unknown soldier in a trench in Tunisia left behind a scrap of
paper with the verses:
Stay with me, God. The night is dark,
The night is cold: my little spark
Of courage dies. The night is long;
Be with me, God, and make me strong.
America has lived through many a cold, dark night, when the cupped hands of prayer were our only shield
against the extinction of courage. Though that flame has flickered from time to time, it burns brightest when
we are willing, as we ought to be now, to turn our faces and our hearts to God not only at moments of
personal danger and civil strife, but in the full flower of the liberty, peace, and abundance that He has
showered upon us.
Indeed, the true meaning of our entire history as a Nation can scarcely be glimpsed without some notion of
the importance of prayer, our Declaration of Dependence on God's favor on this unfinished enterprise we call
America. Our land today is more diverse than ever, our citizens come from nearly every nation on Earth, and
the variety of religious traditions that have found welcome here has never been greater. On our National Day
of Prayer, then, we join together as people of many faiths to petition God to show us His mercy and His love,
to heal our weariness and uphold our hope, that we might live ever mindful of His justice and thankful for His
blessing.
By joint resolution of the Congress approved April 17, 1952, the recognition of a particular day set aside each
year as a National Day of Prayer has become a cherished national tradition.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim
May 7, 1987, as a National Day of Prayer. I call upon the citizens of this great Nation to gather together on that
day in homes and places of worship to pray, each after his or her own manner, for unity of the hearts of all
mankind.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-second day of December, in the year of
our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and eleventh.
Ronald Reagan