The Office of the Chaplain United States House of Representatives

Opening Prayer

07/26/2025
Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben

God of grace and peace, in Your mercy speak into our hearts this day with words of both challenge and encouragement, that we would be neither paralyzed by our pride nor stymied by our despair.

For You have commanded us to live in harmony with one another. This is a hard directive to follow. In our hubris, we are inclined to do what is wise in our own sight, failing to appreciate the value of the opposing voice.

But in our hopelessness, we look for ways to undermine our adversaries, repaying their evil with our own.

Only with Your intervention can we choose to do what honors all people. Only by yielding to Your judgment can we give up our desire for vengeance. 

Break into our inclinations for discord and teach us how to live in harmony. Teach us patience and humility that even here we could find ways toward a shared purpose, a purpose established in the peace to be found only in You.

In the unity of Your name, we pray. Amen.

Thought of the Week

We hold these truths to be self–evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.


The Declaration of Independence, 1776

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