Faith Filled Friday: Prayer For Religious Liberty

The American Bishops have called for a Fortnight For Freedom prayer and fast to correspond with the two weeks leading to July 4th, the conitnued HSS Mandate that forces religious institutions to violate their conscience on abortion and contraception, and now the undermining of marriage with recent Supreme Court Decisions. 




The prayer:
 

Prayer for the Protection of Religious Liberty

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.

This also coincides with the feast day of St. Thomas More (June 22), the patron saint of religious liberty, who was executed on July 6th,1535 for refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII’s illegal marriage and for naming himself the head of the Church in England, essentially splitting England from Roman Catholicism.  Here is a clip of his beheading from a dramatization the miniseries, The Tudors.