Reagan Finds Prayers of People ‘Warm, Humbling’

President Reagan told the National Prayer Breakfast today that people tell him almost every day that they are praying for him, and it is a “warm but humbling feeling.”

The President and First Lady Nancy Reagan joined in silent prayer for American hostages in Lebanon and for missing Church of England envoy Terry Waite as the annual breakfast session at a Washington hotel ended.

“Hardly a day goes by that I’m not told, sometimes in letters and sometimes by people I meet, that they are praying for me,” the President said. “That’s a warm but humbling feeling.”

He said he sometimes answers by saying that “if they ever get a busy signal, it’s because I’m in there ahead of them.”

“I was brought up in a home where we were taught to believe in intercessory prayer,” the President said. “I know it is those prayers, and millions like them, that are building high and strong this cathedral of freedom we call America.”

It was Reagan’s seventh appearance at the annual event sponsored by members of the House and Senate who meet weekly in a prayer group. Among those in attendance were Vice President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, Coretta Scott King and evangelist Billy Graham.