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14 september
2001
President's
Remarks at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance
The National
Cathedral
President Proclaims
National Day of Prayer and Remembrance
Washington, D.C.
1:00 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: We
are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so
great a loss, and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come
before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who
love them.
On Tuesday, our
country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have
seen the images of fire and ashes, and bent steel.
Now come the names,
the list of casualties we are only beginning to read. They are the
names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an
airport, busy with life. They are the names of people who faced
death, and in their last moments called home to say, be brave, and I
love you.
They are the names
of passengers who defied their murderers, and prevented the murder
of others on the ground. They are the names of men and women who
wore the uniform of the United States, and died at their posts.
They are the names
of rescuers, the ones whom death found running up the stairs and
into the fires to help others. We will read all these names. We will
linger over them, and learn their stories, and many Americans will
weep.
To the children and
parents and spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer
the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are not
alone.
Just three days
removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of
history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to
answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.
War has been waged
against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful,
but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the
timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of
our choosing.
Our purpose as a
nation is firm. Yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed,
and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there is a
searching, and an honesty. At St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on
Tuesday, a woman said, "I prayed to God to give us a sign that
He is still here." Others have prayed for the same, searching
hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing.
God's signs are not
always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that his purposes
are not always our own. Yet the prayers of private suffering,
whether in our homes or in this great cathedral, are known and heard,
and understood.
There are prayers
that help us last through the day, or endure the night. There are
prayers of friends and strangers, that give us strength for the
journey. And there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater
than our own.
This world He
created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only
for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the
Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn.
It is said that
adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as
well. In this trial, we have been reminded, and the world has seen,
that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and
brave. We see our national character in rescuers working past
exhaustion; in long lines of blood donors; in thousands of citizens
who have asked to work and serve in any way possible.
And we have seen
our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the
World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed
until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved
priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office
workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down sixty-eight
floors to safety. A group of men drove through the night from Dallas
to Washington to bring skin grafts for burn victims.
In these acts, and
in many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another,
and an abiding love for our country. Today, we feel what Franklin
Roosevelt called the warm courage of national unity. This is a unity
of every faith, and every background.
It has joined
together political parties in both houses of Congress. It is evident
in services of prayer and candlelight vigils, and American flags,
which are displayed in pride, and wave in defiance.
Our unity is a
kinship of grief, and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our
enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the
world.
America is a nation
full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for. But we are
not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has
produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America,
because we are freedom's home and defender. And the commitment of
our fathers is now the calling of our time.
On this national
day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our
nation, and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We
pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow.
We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a
life to come.
As we have been
assured, neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor
powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth,
can separate us from God's love. May He bless the souls of the
departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our
country.
God bless America.
END 1:07 P.M. EDT
  
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