Sitting with her head bowed Thursday in the last pew at Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church, Savitha Jesudason listened to an organist play and prayed silently for her family, friends, and anyone hurting in the world, she said.
Jesudason stopped by the Takoma Park church, a few blocks away from her home, to join a handful of congregants in commemorating the National Day of Prayer, a day held on the first Thursday in May to bring people of all faiths together in organized prayer.
‘‘It’s a day when people know they have others around to pray for them,” said Jesudason, a 19-year-old Montgomery College student.
The National Day of Prayer was made official in 1952, when President Harry S. Truman signed a joint declaration by Congress to hold an annual day of reflection. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a law that set the day to the first Thursday of every May.
Each year, the president signs a declaration encouraging Americans to pray, and state governors traditionally follow suit. The state’s proclamation signed by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) this year reads in part: ‘‘Prayer can play a valuable and productive role in strengthening bonds of understanding, tolerance, friendship and unity among all people.”
Churches around the county held events to commemorate the day. The Sligo Seventh-day Adventist church opened for an hour of reflection in the afternoon and in the evening.
Debbie Eisele, a pastor at Sligo who acted as a ‘‘prayer partner” for congregants who wished to have someone to pray with when they visited the church on Thursday, said the church has been observing the day for the last five years. And while only a handful of people show up, Eisele said she had faith that congregants were observing the day elsewhere in their own way.
‘‘Prayer is something invisible, that’s not so tangible for most people,” she said.
Rockville resident Bob Simpson, a member of Hughes United Methodist Church in Wheaton, said his church’s annual event focused on the concerns provided by the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a privately funded group that encourages participation in the National Day of Prayer.
Hughes United Methodist alternates with the Presbyterian Church of the Atonement, located across the street from Hughes, to observe the National Day of Prayer with a breakfast for people to pray before work and other daily activities. The list this year included the military, education, churches, families, the government and the media. The theme was ‘‘Prayer: America’s Strength and Shield.”
‘‘The day does reflect much of what’s been going on in preceding weeks,” the war in Iraq in particular, Simpson said. ‘‘At the church services where we’re lifting up our joys and concerns, some of those same things are voiced aloud.”
At Calvary Lutheran Church in Silver Spring, congregants were able to sign up for 30 minutes at a time in the church’s chapel during a vigil that lasted from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. that day.
The headquarters of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Silver Spring held a breakfast to pray for the nation and its leadership, and then sent church members out into the community to silently pray for people living in the neighborhood.
‘‘I believe that for one day, we can all take off from our routine activities and devote ourselves to praying for our leaders and what concerns us,” said Stanley Ponniah, an accountant who has been with the Adventist church for 10 years and assisted in this year’s National Day of Prayer activities.
‘‘We need the tangible to take care of the intangible,” Ponniah said of his passion for both prayer and accounting. ‘‘Every day, I pray, ‘God, please sharpen my skills and enlarge my abilities. I want to make a positive impact.’”
Glenn Moorman, a pastor at Hampshire View Baptist Church in the Hampshire Greens area of Silver Spring, said while his church did not have a formal event on the National Day of Prayer, during weekly prayer meetings at the church, congregants’ prayers were in line with universal concerns.
During a prayer meeting April 30, attended by about 50 people, members prayed for the country’s leaders, the upcoming elections, an end to the war and ‘‘a little relief at the gas pump,” Moorman said.
‘‘Even though it’s something we encourage people to do privately, it’s also a public forum,” Moorman said.
Jesudason said in the lobby of Sligo church after her prayers Thursday that while prayer was typically considered a private endeavor, marking a day for reflection was important.
‘‘It’s like everything is able to come out at this kind of fellowship,” she said.
