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National Day of Prayer [1986]
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National Day of Prayer [1986]
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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, 1981-89
Folder Title: National Day of Prayer
Box: 79 (1986)
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: 05/3/2023
THE OF THE UNITED
OF
SEAL
SEALTS
National Day of Prayer, 1986
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Prayer is deeply woven into the fabric of our history from its very beginnings. The same Continental Congress
that declared our independence also proclaimed a National Day of Prayer. And from that time forward, it
would be hard to exaggerate the role that prayer has played in the lives of individual Americans and in the
life of the Nation as a whole.
Our greatest leaders have always turned to prayer at times of crisis. We recall the moving story of George
Washington kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge to ask for divine assistance when the fate of our fledgling
Nation hung in the balance. And Abraham Lincoln tells us that on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, "I went
into my room and got down on my knees in prayer." Never before, he added, had he prayed "with as much
earnestness."
More than once, Lincoln also summoned the entire Nation to its knees before the God in Whose hand lies the
destiny of nations. It was, he said, "fit and becoming in all peoples, at all times, to acknowledge and revere
the Supreme Government of God
and to pray with all fervency and contrition
After the shock of Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt told us he took courage from the thought that "the vast
majority of the members of the human race" joined us in a common prayer for victory as we fought for
"freedom under God."
Prayer, of course, is deeply personal: the way in which it finds expression depends on our individual
dispositions as well as on our religious convictions. Just as our religious institutions are guaranteed freedom
in this land, so also do we cherish the diversity of our faiths and the freedom afforded to each of us to pray
according to the promptings of our individual conscience.
Yet the light of prayer has a common core: it is our hopes and aspirations; our sorrows and fears; our deep
remorse and renewed resolve; our thanks and joyful praise; and most especially our love-all turned toward
God. The Talmud aptly calls prayer the "service of the heart," and Christ enjoins us to "pray without
ceasing."
Accordingly, like the Presidents who have come before me, I invite my fellow citizens to join me in earnest
prayer that the God Who has led and protected us through so many trials and favored us with such abundant
blessings may continue to watch over our land. Let us never forget the wise counsel of Theodore Roosevelt
that "all our extraordinary material development
will go for nothing unless with that growth goes hand in
hand the moral, the spiritual growth that will enable us to use aright the other as an instrument."
In prayer, let us ask that God's light may illuminate the minds and hearts of our people and our leaders, so
that we may meet the challenges that lie before us with courage and wisdom and justice. In prayer let us
recall with confidence the promise of old that if we humble ourselves before God and pray and seek His face,
He will surely hear and forgive and heal and bless our land.
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. Since that time, every President
has proclaimed an annual National Day of Prayer, resuming the tradition begun by the Continental Congress.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim
Thursday, May 1, 1986, as National Day of Prayer. I call upon all Americans to join me in prayer that day. I
ask them to gather in their homes and places of worship with their ministers and teachers of religion and
heads of families, to give thanks for every good thing God has done for us and to seek His guidance and
strength in the conduct of our lives.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of January, 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 tenth.
Ronald Reagan