Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Cupich Gives Prayer of Invocation at the Democratic National Convention - FULL TEXT

The Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich provided a prayer of invocation at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention on August 19th, 2024. He spoke of the “ongoing injustices in our national life” and called for national unity. He spoke before a large crowd at the United Center in Chicago.  Archbishop Jerome Listecki, of Milwaukee, provided the invocation at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. Vice President Kamala Harris was chosen as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, with Governor Tim Walz as Vice-presidential candidate. President Joe Biden, age 81, stepped down as Democratic candidate.

FULL Text of Cardinal Cupich’s invocation at the Democratic National Convention
Aug. 19, 2024
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 re-weave 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
https://www.archchicago.org/en/cardinal-cupich-s-statement/-/article/2024/08/19/invocation-prayer-opening-the-democratic-national-convention-cardinal-blase-cupich-archbishop-of-chicago