National Day Of Prayer Is May 2

The National Day of Prayer is May 2.

The event is observed annually inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Harry Truman.

In 1988, the law was amended and signed by President Ronald Reagan, permanently setting the day as the first Thursday in May.

The theme for this year is “Love One Another,” taken from John 13:34 where Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

Besides praying for Americans to love one another, people on May 2 are urged to pray for:

• Local, state, and federal leaders to love and respect one another, and work together for the nation’s greater good
• Military leaders and personnel
• Mmbers of the media
• Business leaders
• Educational leaders

Click here to read the 2019 National Prayer for America

Residents, including teachers, students, and other civic leaders often gather around flagpoles at town halls and schools to pray the morning of event.

A national task force exists to communicate the need to pray for each other, the United States, and its leaders. The task force works to further a Christian viewpoint about the day, that the United States was founded on religious freedom and born out of prayer and in reverence for the God of the Bible.

“Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline,” said President Thomas Jefferson. “Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the time for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and right can never be safer than in their hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.”

For more information about the National Day of Prayer, click here.

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Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com