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Billy Graham's Prayer (at 95) For The American Nation
'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from sin and set us free. Amen!'
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Well, JBenedict, this was sent to me from a monastic friend.
Indeed, it seems it was wrongly attributed, being the prayer of another pastor. However, I will not *insult* that monastic friend by telling him that.
The reason for sending it was that it is a good prayer for the beginning of a season of fasting and REPENTANCE.
Therefore, does it really matter that it is wrongly attributed?
What about the words and sentiments in this prayer? Will you discredit them too?
I am surprised and saddened that the words did not touch you or inspire you to contemplate how sinful we have become but, that rather, you had to immediately search the internet to see if it was genuine.
In Christ,
Alice
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It's a very good prayer, and thank you for posting it. The meaning is priceless.
A friend tried to convince me sometime back, that the so called Prayer of St. Francis was actually written by him. It wasn't. The prayer appeared on a holy card during World War I. St. Francis never saw or heard that prayer, but somehow it did get attributed to him. It happens all the time with one work or another. So I am not surprised that the "Graham" prayer could be mis-attributed.
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Alice,
I don't think that JBenedict intended to discredit the prayer or the sentiments that it conveyed - that's not his style at all. It might have been better understood had he included text with the link. I feel pretty certain that he was merely intending to point out that the prayer didn't originate with the Rev. Billy Graham.
At the same time, as a long-time admirer of Rev Graham and one who firmly believes that he is truly a man of God, I certainly can understand how someone could mistakenly attribute the words of that prayer to him.
Actually, I remember the story from Kansas and the less than uplifting reactions by some to the prayer at the time of the events described in the Snopes article.
Many years,
Neil
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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Dear Charles, And the memorare of St Bernard was actually composed by a French priest who worked among prisoners sentenced to death . . . The great Scottish ethnologist, Alexander Carmichael, recorded a "Hymn by Alexander the Great." It is a very Christian hymn - I have my suspicions, however, that it wasn't actually composed by the great conqueror . . .  Alex
Last edited by Orthodox Catholic; 11/17/13 09:04 AM.
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Alice,
I don't think that JBenedict intended to discredit the prayer or the sentiments that it conveyed - that's not his style at all. It might have been better understood had he included text with the link. I feel pretty certain that he was merely intending to point out that the prayer didn't originate with the Rev. Billy Graham.
At the same time, as a long-time admirer of Rev Graham and one who firmly believes that he is truly a man of God, I certainly can understand how someone could mistakenly attribute the words of that prayer to him.
Actually, I remember the story from Kansas and the less than uplifting reactions by some to the prayer at the time of the events described in the Snopes article.
Many years,
Neil I just saw this. I apologize to JBenedict if I over reacted to his post. Alice
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