DAY OF PRAYER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1940, Page 9

DAY OF PRAYER

IN CHURCHES THROUGHOUT EMPIRE FOR VICTORY OVER FORCES OF EVIL. VICAR-GENERAL’S MESSAGE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. Reference to the fact that Christian people all over the Empire, at the express wish of his Majesty the King, would observe next Sunday, September 8, as a day of solemn intercession, was made in a message by the Ven Archdeacon W. Bullock, Vicar-General of the Wellington Diocese, which was read in Anglican churches in the diocese on Sunday.

In the course of his message. Archdeacon Bullock said:

“So far-reaching will be the results of the present cpnflict that we cannot but feel that the struggle is worth while. This war involves many things so closely related to our Christian religion that it may also be called a war for the maintenance of Christian values. Great statesmen like Lord Halifax, Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt have not been afraid to state this, and his Majesty the King has now called us to lay our plans and our ideals before God. I feel that we can do this with purity of motive and a clean conscience. And so we can pray together on September 8, as we should do every day, for victory in God’s name over the forces of cruelty, injustice and untruthfulness. "Let us have no hesitation in praynig for victory, for it is true that when . we talked of peace the enemy made himself ready to battle. Now that our hands are set to a task greater than that of any other age, let us be, in thought and deed as well as in prayer, worthy of the aid that God will give us. We shall pray for our brothers and sisters who are ueing called upon to suffer often even death itself; and we shall remember those whom, in many lands, war has made hungry or destitute; and we shall pray for our enemies that God may turn their hearts. With our prayers informed by such a spirit, God will make us worthy of the victory He will give. “In the absence of our Bishop because of illness, I venture to call you to meet together specially for this purpose at the services on Sunday, September 8.” No snecial forms of prayer are to be printed for next Sunday’s services in Anglican churches, but it has been suggested to vicars that the form of prayer based on the Lord’s Prayer issued last September, together with the leaflet of prayers issued for use in the diocese, will enable them to build up their own form.

Following the precedent set by Cardinal Kinsley’s direction in England, there will be an exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in all churches and chapels throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of New Zealand on Sunday next. There will also be special prayers introduced into the Mass, and intercessory prayers into the evening services in all Catholic churches.