It looks like this 4th of July the misguided folks at DC Comics are removing the famously patriotic flair from Wonder Woman’s costume.

Well, they can take Wonder Woman’s patriotic pants, but they can’t take our Abraham Lincoln. I think his 147-year-old words are perhaps even more relevant today:

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and 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. 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. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

And a prayer for this patriotic feast? Here’s one I found a couple of years ago as part of this collection (author unknown). It might make a nice addition to your family’s celebrations this weekend.

God of liberty,
We acknowledge Your reign.

For the freedom of our land
For the rights we possess,
For the security of our laws,
We praise You and thank You.

Give guidance to our leaders
Watch over those
Who serve their country,
Raise up the poor,
And exalt the humble.
Make our nation great and strong,
Renowned in wisdom,
Prosperous in virtue,
And renewed in faith.

Destroy all signs of division:
Take away hatred and violence;
Fill us with Your peace.
Make us one people,
United in praising You,
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.