WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) delivered closing remarks at the 65th annual National Prayer Breakfast this morning. Senator Coons co-chaired the breakfast this year with Senator John Boozman (R-Ark.).

The Senator’s full remarks as delivered are below:

Thank you, Mr. President. We are coming near the end of this prayer breakfast.

The presence of the divine spirit with us in this room with us resting on each heart and radiating outwards reinforces for me what scripture insists is one of our most basic obligations: to love our neighbor as ourself. We are all children of God, each of us created in his image. And though we might have different images as we look out at each other today, it is in that spirit of prayer and love for all of us that we have gathered. 

Rabbi Lookstein, thank you for sharing with us this morning the words of Solomon from Torah that we must continue to proclaim liberty for all of God’s children.” To Congressmen Vargas and Aderholt, thank you for your prayers for the poor and for justice, and your reminder that we should pray for those in leadership in our republic. 

Thank you Bart Millard and Mercy Me for sharing about your father and sharing about how your life has been transformed through prayer, and in song helping us to imagine what our eyes will see when his face is before us and when his glory surrounds us. And thank you for reminding us that God’s love can transform us.

Thank you Chaplain Black for your service and for your spirit and for reminding us that with prayer all things are possible. From healing our nation’s divisions and our difficult racial history, to making our voices heard in heaven, as long as we pray with that earnest need, you have not just an appointed position, Chaplain, but an anointed position.

And to my partner and friend Senator Boozman, thank you. It’s been a wonderful journey together.

And Mr. President, thank you for joining us this morning and for keeping this tradition, one that really does matter, in which every President has joined this breakfast as we humble ourselves and pray for our nation, for wisdom, and for hope.

As I said in the opening, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, the House Prayer Breakfast, the parliamentary prayer breakfast[s] around the world are opportunities for us to come together with those who are our opponents, those with whom we fight and struggle in the daily work of politics. We gather, we humble ourselves, and we see God’s face.

I grew up in a small church in Delaware, and there was a men’s prayer group in that church. That church did bold things -- it welcomed refugees, it fed the hungry and homeless -- but one Sunday morning, a visiting pastor asked if anyone had ever tried to make real the challenge of Isaiah 61 and other challenges from our Old Testament that said to visit the widow and the orphan, to visit those in prison, to feed the hungry, and to welcome the stranger.

And he said, “I'm going to the prison here in Delaware, in Smyrna, to visit with prisoners. Will anyone come with me?” This was a suburban, Republican, Presbyterian congregation -- we did everything decently and in order -- and a few men surprised themselves by finding their arms raised, and then went to this place to visit with people quite different from themselves, and to feel the spirit move them, to challenge them, to be brothers with people who had lived very different lives.

One of those men became close friends with a convicted murderer named Paul. One of those men welcomed that man, Paul, into his home, where he was raising three young boys and took a great risk, because of the power of that prayer group. That man is my father.

It is amazing what prayer can challenge us to do. 

And so Mr. President, we shared a solemn and very difficult moment yesterday as you came to my home state of Delaware. We traveled together, along with many leaders of our military and members of Congress. As we gathered with the family of a Navy SEAL, Ryan Owens, to comfort his widow, his young children, his parents, and his family, and as we marched and assembled and prayed, at the very edge of his flag-draped coffin, I could see the weight of your office upon your shoulders.

And so with the same courage my father had in his prayer group, I might ask if you’d just come stand with me, and John, if you’d stand alongside him, and if you all please would bow your heads a we pray for a moment as Solomon did, as David did, Heavenly Father, we ask that you would give our President your wisdom, that you would open our hearts and his heart, that you would give us a heart for all your children. A heart of humility, and grace. Amen.