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Regular Session, 2012 ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 136
BY SENATOR CROWE
A RESOLUTION
To recognize the first Thursday in May of each year as the State Day of Prayer at the
Louisiana State Capitol.
WHEREAS, it is appropriate to recognize the first Thursday in May of each year as
the State Day of Prayer at the Louisiana State Capitol; and
WHEREAS, Congress made the National Day of Prayer an official, annual day of
observance every first Thursday of May beginning in 1952; and
WHEREAS, prior to its official observance in 1952 and prior to the nation's
founding, according to the original manuscript of The Writings of George Washington , the
Continental Congress issued a proclamation recommending as follows: "The Honorable
Congress having recommended to the United States to set apart Thursday the 6th of May
next to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, to acknowledge the gracious
interpositions of Providence; to deprecate [to pray or intreat that a present evil may be
removed] deserved punishment for our Sins and Ingratitiude, to unitedly implore the
Protection of Heaven; success to our Arms and the Arms of our Ally: the Commander in
Chief enjoins a religious observance of said day and directs the Chaplains to prepare
discourses proper for the occasion, strictly forbidding all recreations and unnecessary labor";
and
WHEREAS, during the war with France, President John Adams declared May 9,
1798, as "a day of solemn humility, fasting, and prayer", during which citizens of all faiths
were asked to pray "that our country may be protected from all the dangers which threaten
it"; and
WHEREAS, on March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation
expressing the idea "that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may
be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins", and designated the day
of April 30, 1863, as a day of "national humiliation, fasting and prayer" in the hope that God
would respond by restoring "our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy
condition of unity and peace". He went on to say, ". . . it is the duty of nations as well as of SR NO. 136 ENROLLED
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men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and
transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead
to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures
and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord"; and
WHEREAS, in his 1983 declaration, Ronald Reagan said, "From General
Washington's struggle at Valley Forge to the present, this Nation has fervently sought and
received divine guidance as it pursued the course of history. This occasion provides our
Nation with an opportunity to further recognize the source of our blessings, and to seek His
help for the challenges we face today and in the future".
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
does hereby recognize the first Thursday in May as the State Day of Prayer at the Louisiana
State Capitol.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE