"O God Our Creator,
from Your provident hand we have received our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You have called us as Your people and given us the right and the duty to worship You, the only true God, and Your Son, Jesus Christ. Through the power and working of Your Holy Spirit, You call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world, bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel to every corner of society."We ask You to bless us in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty. Give us the strength of mind and heart to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened; give us courage in making our voices heard on behalf of the rights of Your Church and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.
"Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father, a clear and united voice to all Your sons and daughters gathered in Your Church in this decisive hour in the history of our nation, so that, with every trial withstood and every danger overcome--for the sake of our children, our grandchildren, and all who come after us--this great land will always be "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
We ask this through Christ Our Lord.
Amen"
"In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and He answered by setting me free." Psalm 118:5
"O St. Maximillian Kolbe, faithful follower of St. Francis, inflamed by the love of God, you dedicated your life to the practice of virtue and to works of the apostolate. Look down with favor upon us who devoutly confide in your intercession. Having consecrated yourself to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, you inspired countless souls to a holy life and various forms of the apostolate in order to do good to others and to spread the kingdom of God. Obtain for us the grace by our lives and labors to draw many souls to Christ. In your close conformity to our Divine Savior you reached such an intense degree of love that you offered your life to save a fellow prisoner. Implore God that we, inflamed by such ardent charity, may through our living faith and our apostolic works witness Christa to others, and thus merit to join you in the blessed vision of God.
Amen."
On July 17, 1794, sixteen Carmelite Nuns, who had offered their lives for the end of the Terror, during the French Revolution, walked up the steps of the scaffold to the guillotine, one by one, singing the Salve Regina, the Te Deum and the Veni Creator. Ten days later, Robespierre fell and the bloody revolution was over.
Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence
"To obtain religious as well as civil liberty, I entered zealously into the Revolution...God grant that this religious liberty may be preserved in these States, to the end of time, and that all who believe in the religion of Christ may practice the leading principle of charity, the basis of every virtue
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