Speaker Busch asked me to give the opening prayer today to “set the tone” for the session.

That prayer follows:

On a special occasion, we say the Shehecheeyanu prayer.

At the start of a holiday,

When first seeing the Temple Mount or the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem.

Today is a special occasion.

For the handful of us who have been honored to serve in this body for 30 years or more;

For the many of us who will take the oath of office for the first time.

When Jesus preached in the Galilee, he said:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Whatever our theology, whatever our ideology, today is a special occasion; our task in the days ahead is to seek consensus, to make peace.

Our constituents have chosen us to represent them in this historic chamber of democracy.

Edmund Burke, a member of the British parliament, famously said of a legislator’s relationship with constituents:

Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. (“There were no women in the British Parliament when Burke said this,” I added.) It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Blessed art Thou, Eternal our God, Sovereign of all:

for giving us life, sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this season.