During Alexis de Tocqueville’s ten month tour of the United States in 1831-32, he was invited to attend a political gathering whose purpose was to come to the assistance of the Poles and to get arms and money to them. He found two or three thousand persons gathered in a vast hall. A priest advanced to the podium and spoke the following words. Like much in history, it is as appropo today as it was then:
“God Almighty! God of hosts! Thou who did maintain the hearts and guide the arms of our fathers when they sustained the sacred rights of their national independence; thou who made them triumph over an odious oppression and granted our people the benefits of peace and freedom. O Lord! turn a favorable eye toward the other hemisphere; regard with pity an heroic people who today struggles as we did formerly for the defense of the same rights! Lord, who have created all men on the same model, do not permit despotism to deform thy work and to maintain inequality on earth. God Almighty! watch over the destiny of the [Ukrainians], render them worthy of being free; let thy wisdom reign in their councils, let thy strength be in their arms; spread terror over their enemies, divide the powers that hatch their ruin, and do not permit the injustice to which the world has been witness to be consummated today. Lord, who hold in thy powerful hand the hearts of peoples, arouse allies to the sacred cause of right; make the [European] nation[s] rise, and leave the repose in which their Heads keep them, come to fight once again for the freedom of the world.
O Lord! never turn thy face away from us; permit us always to be the most religious people as well as the most free!
God Almighty, answer our prayer today; save the [Ukrainians]. We ask this in the name of thy much loved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the salvation of all men. Amen.
The whole assembly reverently said Amen!” – Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835; p. 277
May this be our prayer for the people of Ukraine – and for America.
