Proclamation 4087—National Day of Prayer, 1971

The great need of our time is that of reconciliation. Nations should be reconciled to nations, races to races, families to families, individuals to individuals. Reconciliation is needed among communities, among ethnic groups, among religious denominations, among social and economic classes, among family members.

The work of reconciliation is too great to be left to man alone. In this work, man needs God, the Supreme Reconciler. The Bible tells us God is the source of reconciliation, in Whom all things are one. Under the fatherhood of God, there flourishes the brotherhood of man.

The world yearns for reconciliation, and for the renewal and the solidarity and the healing that reconciliation brings. This hunger can only be met in its fullness through prayer.

In 1952 the Congress directed the President to set aside a suitable day other than a Sunday each year as a National Day of Prayer. On this day we give special recognition to the Nation's deep religious heritage, and we ask God's help and His blessing.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, October 20, as National Day of Prayer, 1971. On this day I urge that Americans pray for the fullness of reconciliation among all peoples, and for progress toward ending divisiveness in our own land and in the international community. Let us especially pray for reconciliation in Southeast Asia, and for a speedy return to their loved ones of our long-suffering prisoners of war.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-sixth.

RICHARD NIXON