

HARRISBURG – State Rep. Stephanie Borowicz (R-Clinton/Centre) on Monday introduced a resolution in the state House calling for March 30 to be observed as a “Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer in Pennsylvania. Her resolution was referred to the House’s State Government Committee.

The resolution:

Designating March 30, 2020, as “A State Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” in Pennsylvania. WHEREAS, On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed April 30, 1863, as a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer; and

WHEREAS, Since March 11, 2020, the United States has been in a time of crisis; and

WHEREAS, During the pandemic of 2020 and the ensuing uncertainty and anxiety of this time, Pennsylvanians may be comforted by turning to a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer as well as the wise words of our great President Abraham Lincoln; and

WHEREAS, The House of Representatives devoutly recognizes the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations; and

WHEREAS, It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow; and

WHEREAS, With assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord; and

WHEREAS, Insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world; and

WHEREAS, May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of the pandemic, which now desolates this Commonwealth may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?; and

WHEREAS, We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven and we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; and

WHEREAS, We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown; and

WHEREAS, But we have forgotten God and we have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and

WHEREAS, We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own; and

WHEREAS, Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!; and

WHEREAS, It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness; therefore be it

RESOLVED, That House of Representatives designate March 30, 2020, as “A State Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” in Pennsylvania; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives request that all Pennsylvanians abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.