Ask the Editor: The D-Day prayers

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, June 7th, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next “Ask the Editor” for the month of June. WORLD Radio executive producer Paul Butler responding to a few emails he received this week after Monday’s History Book on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

PAUL BUTLER: I’ve been involved with our weekly WORLD History Book segment since 2015. Over those nine years, I’ve gotten a handful of encouraging responses, but to be honest, most of the feedback that comes in either points out a factual error, identifies a mispronunciation, or offers a counter perspective.

But this week your responses to Caleb Welde’s commemoration of D-Day has had a very different tone.

Amy Brown of Lancaster County, PA, has a son who’s just graduated from West Point. She writes:

“I want to thank you for … today’s podcast. Personally, it made me feel like I was in that dreadful moment and tears streamed from my eyes as I thought of the family members back home grieving over their loved men who were now entering a dreadful war.”

Amy ended her note with a reminder for all of us to follow the example from 1944…encouraging us to pray for the protection of the young men and women who serve in the military today.

Bill Mech from Des Moines, Iowa, also said he was also moved to tears by Caleb’s story. He writes:

“While the prayers offered on-air in those days were in a very formal style that may seem stilted to modern ears, it was obvious that they were heartfelt and sincere. But it was the national call to prayer that moved me most, to hear that our leaders knew that as a nation we were wholly dependent on Almighty God for military success as well as for the comfort in suffering that so many households throughout the country were facing.”

Bill laments that our nation has in so many ways forgotten God but ends his note hopeful, saying that…in his words “... if and when we face such a national crisis again, [may] God … be remembered and common purpose restored. May God preserve our republic through the prayers of His people for mercy and grace.”

A couple weeks ago, I asked Caleb if he would be willing to write that D-Day History Book. I encouraged him to listen to the many broadcast recordings from the time, and identify a few highlights that we could cut together in a timeline of events. I had no idea what Caleb would uncover, how prominent prayer was during the broadcasts immediately following the invasion of Normandy.

NBC: Ladies and gentlemen. At this time, the National Broadcasting Company is pleased to present another prayer in the busy schedule of this historic day…

June 6th, 1944, was a very busy broadcast day, with breaking news bulletins, first hand accounts, interviews with government and military officials. But nearly every hour throughout the day they still took a moment to pray.

NBC: Almighty God, God of our Fathers, we thy people bow humbly before thee on this fateful day of human history.

I’m guessing that for many of you, Monday’s History Book was the first time you’d heard that. It was a surprise to me. When Caleb told me what he’d discovered, I knew that needed to be the focus of our D-Day coverage.

FDR: Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, have set upon a mighty endeavor…

Can I admit something to you? Not only was I also moved to tears listening to Caleb’s piece, I was also convicted that I sometimes lack a prayerful focus as we cover the news of our day. Not that we include prayer on our program, but know that as we cover the news, we do so prayerfully. In hope and with faith in the one whose will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I’d like to end this week with one more broadcast prayer from D-Day…this from Roswell P. Barnes, General Secretary of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America.

BARNES: Thou hast been the refuge and strength in all generations of those who put their trust in thee. May it please thee this day to draw to thyself the hearts of those who struggle and endure to the uttermost have mercy on them and suffer not their faith in thee to fail, guide and protect them by thy light and strength, that they may be kept from evil. May thy comfort be sufficient for all who suffer pain or who wait in the agony of uncertainty.

Forgive us and cleanse us, as well as those who strive against us, that we may be fit instruments of thy purposes. O, Lord, God, we humbly dedicate to thee, ourselves, our nation and our cause place in thy hands, all we have and all we are, and all we desire, and unto thy most gracious keeping, we commend our loved ones and ourselves, ascribing unto thee all praise and glory through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.

Amen. That’s this month’s Ask the Editor. I’m Paul Butler.

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