novena reminder...

A Novena of Weeks leading to Election Day


Starting on Tuesday, August 31, 2004, Priests for Life is calling upon all Catholics to offer a special novena of nine weeks of intense prayer for our nation as we prepare to elect our national and local leaders. August 31 is exactly nine weeks before November 2, which is Election Day.

The intentions of this prayer campaign include the following:
a) That in this year's elections, our nation will embrace the moral values of a culture of life;
b) That America will reclaim her founding principles of faith and dependence upon God in public life;
c) That believers will reject apathy and take an active role in the elections by registering to vote and actually voting;
d) That candidates will understand their responsibility to serve the people, to protect life and family, and to adhere to the law of God.

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A Prayer for our National Elections

O God, we acknowledge you today as Lord,
Not only of individuals, but of nations and governments.

We thank you for the privilege
Of being able to organize ourselves politically
And of knowing that political loyalty
Does not have to mean disloyalty to you.

We thank you for your law,
Which our Founding Fathers acknowledged
And recognized as higher than any human law.

We thank you for the opportunity that this election year puts before us,
To exercise our solemn duty not only to vote,
But to influence countless others to vote,
And to vote correctly.

Lord, we pray that your people may be awakened.
Let them realize that while politics is not their salvation,
Their response to you requires that they be politically active.

Awaken your people to know that they are not called to be a sect fleeing the world
But rather a community of faith renewing the world.

Awaken them that the same hands lifted up to you in prayer
Are the hands that pull the lever in the voting booth;
That the same eyes that read your Word
Are the eyes that read the names on the ballot,
And that they do not cease to be Christians
When they enter the voting booth.

Awaken your people to a commitment to justice,
To the sanctity of marriage and the family,
To the dignity of each individual human life,
And to the truth that human rights begin when human lives begin,
And not one moment later.

Lord, we rejoice today
That we are citizens of your kingdom.

May that make us all the more committed
To being faithful citizens on earth.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

--Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life