Prayers of Famous People

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin wrote and spoke rather extensively on the importance of prayer. In this example, he asks for insight in his daily life and offers his good actions in return.

O powerful goodness! Bountiful Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favours to me.” [1]

Mary Pickford

One of the legends of early film, Mary Pickford wrote this prayer after retiring from silent movies and her responsibilities as cofounder of the United Artists Film Corporation. It was during these years that she became particularly religious, sharing her spiritual reflections in her book, Why Not God?, from which she shared this invocation.

I know that You alone have created me - created me spiritually in Your own image and likeness. I know that You guide and protect me every second. It is I who have wandered from Your love and care, and, at times, “forgetteth what manner of man I am” - seeing but dimly in the mirror.

I sincerely desire to see clearly my shortcomings, my faults, my sins. I earnestly pray to be humble, obedient and loving in order that I may inherit here and now and forever my divine sonship, to be worthy to walk with Thee.[2]

Elvis Presley

The deeply religious Elvis Presley continuously asked for God’s help throughout his career, always searching for answers in his spiritual quest. Before each performance, he was known to find a quiet spot off stage, think about his upcoming performance, and offer this one-line prayer.

Send me some light - I need it.[3]

Eleanor Roosevelt

This is a prayer that Eleanor Roosevelt composed and said before she went to bed each night. Her son Elliott would recall how his mother would go through the same daily rituals in the evening and would end them on her knees, asking for God’s blessing in her own unique way.

Our Father, who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, forbid us to be satisfied with what we make of life. Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far off goals. Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength. Deliver us from the fretfulness and self-pitying; make us sure of the good we cannot see and of the hidden good in the world. Open our eyes to simple beauty all around us and our hearts to the loveliness men hide from us because we do not try to understand them. Save us from ourselves and show us a vision of the world made new. [4]

[1] Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (New York: A.L. Burt Publishers, 1900), p. 105
[2] Lisa Sergio, ed., Prayers of Women (New York; Harper & Row, 1965), p. 195
[3] Larry Geller, “If I Can Dream”: Elvis’ Own Story, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), Inside Jacket
[4] Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, vol 1, 1884-1933 (New York: Viking, 1992), pp. 151-152.