40 Day Prayer and Fast for the Election

This Friday will be 40 days until the Nov 6 elections.  I encourge all GW Catholics to join Chrisians all over the country for a 40 day prayer and fast for the election, not just the presidential but all the state and local elections.  As everyone knows, this is a HUGE election with a lot at stake: life, religious liberty, peace, marriage, etc.

I offer the prayer below as one that GW Catholics should say every day from Friday until the election.  Or, you can use the prayer cards for religious liberty at the Newman Center during the 40 days.

Also, offer up a small fast for 40 straight days.  It can be fasting from coffee or dessert or red meat or whatever. "So we fasted, and prayed to our God for this, and our petition was granted" (Ezra 8:23).

Mary Immaculate, Patroness of our Country, Pray for Us

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.