CNA Staff, Aug 20, 2024 / 11:21 am

In his prayer of invocation at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, Chicago archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich lamented the “ongoing injustices in our national life” while calling for national unity.

Speaking before a packed house at the United Center in Chicago on Monday night, Cupich said Americans are regularly called to “reweave the fabric of America,” arguing that the country is “a nation composed of every people and culture, united not by ties of blood but by profound aspirations of life, freedom, justice, and unbound hope.”

“In every generation, we are called to renew these aspirations,” the prelate said. “We do so when we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts, but also when we confront our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially those created by moral blindness and fear of the other.”

The archbishop asked God to “quicken in us a resolve to protect your handiwork.”

“May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together,” the archbishop prayed. “And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God’s peace.”

Cupich also called for world peace, especially “for the people suffering the senselessness of war,” and evoked Pope Francis by encouraging the audience to “dream dreams and see visions of what by [God’s] grace the world can become.”

Cupich’s remarks come after Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki gave the invocation at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month.

“We pray that you assist our elected officials and candidates always to protect our freedoms, to preserve our democracy, and to govern fairly,” Listecki said last month.

“Grant them the wisdom every day to place the good of our nation above personal interest and to cherish our union. Teach us all to respect justice and our equality before the law,” the archbishop said.

Here is the full text of Cupich’s invocation:

We praise you, O God of all creation. Quicken in us a resolve to protect your handiwork. You are the source of every blessing that graces our lives and our nation.

We pray that you help us to truly understand and answer the sacred call of citizenship. We are a nation composed of every people and culture, united not by ties of blood but by the profound aspirations of life, freedom, justice, and unbound hope. These aspirations are why our forebears saw America as a beacon of hope. And, with your steady guidance, Lord, may we remain so today.

In every generation, we are called to renew these aspirations, to reweave the fabric of America. We do so when we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts but also when we confront our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially those created by moral blindness and fear of the other.

We pray for peace, especially for people suffering the senselessness of war. But as we pray, we must also act, for building up the common good takes work. It takes love.

And so we pray: May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together. And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God’s peace.

Guide us, Lord, in taking up our responsibility to forge this new chapter of our nation’s history. Let it be rooted in the recognition that for us, as for every generation, unity triumphing over division is what advances human dignity and liberty.

Let it be propelled by the women and men elected to serve in public life, who know that service is the mark of true leadership.

And let this new chapter of our nation’s history be filled with overwhelming hope, a hope that refuses to narrow our national vision, but rather, as Pope Francis has said, “to dream dreams and see visions” of what by your grace our world can become.

We ask all of this, trusting in your ever-provident care for us. Amen.