The cynicism of Australians, who prefer to see themselves as mature secularists, is heightened by Americans' unabashed invocation of God and the assumption that the divine will is manifest in the American way – which often seems gauche naivety or a product of spiritual delusion bordering on megalomaniacal.

We, of course, have stayed away from uncomfortable references to spiritual matters in our national songs. The words "God bless Australia" to the tune of Waltzing Matilda were ruled out by Gough and co during deliberations for a new anthem as too religious.

Our love of country and awareness of our part in the mission of democracy is probably no less real than the Americans'. But we are usually embarrassed to express it.

This isn't due to natural modesty. At international sporting events, tearfully clutching our koalas, we are as downright silly as anyone. Sentiment is no problem for an Aussie athlete. It's the serious stuff we find daunting – especially if it mentions the Almighty. But that is the stuff that carried Australians such as Stan Arneil and Weary Dunlop through the camps of the Burma railroad, Changi and the Kokoda Track.

Unlike Americans, who have a clear understanding of their historical mission and its roots in the difficult birth of their turbulent republic, the new generation of Australians have little sense of the historical roots of national character; of goals and aims that sprang from being part of a Christian and, yes, not withstanding multiculturalism, British imperial tradition; a tradition that gave us parliamentary democracy and an ideal of freedom within the rule of law.

This historical perspective has been replaced by a negative, apologetic view of ourselves – hesitant, steeped in uncertainty. Clinging to the edges of this continent, we know we are lucky, but we are afraid to admit we are blessed.

The Americans are not cursed with this uncertainty. They know who they are – one nation under God – and what their mission is: liberty and justice for all. True children of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, the principal founding documents of their republic use language infused, as with incense, by a sense of the sacred.

How many people would dare boast a document that speaks of self-evident truths? The Declaration of Independence is, for Americans, a form of holy writ second only to the commandments given to Moses on Sinai. The US sees itself as a democratic beacon to the world and it is this Messianic sense, its historical sense of destiny, that binds the American people, despite the paradox of their melting-pot culture.

After all, it is a culture that, while declaring all men are created equal, tolerated slavery for almost 100 years and, though dedicated to peace, has been riven by civil war and numerous foreign wars, and where the constitution enshrines the right to bear arms.

It is a culture where family is spoken of constantly, but where the divorce rate is the highest in the developed world; where sexual prurience and gross licentiousness coexist. It is a country so steeped in religion that prayer is an everyday part of life, but prayer in schools is still argued about.

As I watched the terrible cataclysm last week with my 15-year-old daughter sobbing in the bed beside me, like many other Australians I prayed. I prayed for all those people swallowed by the catastrophe, thinking of their fear and suffering, and I prayed for my husband who was in a hotel only a short distance from the Pentagon.

I also prayed for my own family in the US, most of whom live around New York, a branch of the Italian diaspora that links me and many other children of immigrants to the US. But I also prayed with those members of Congress for the ideal of the US, for a nation that bears a burden, in a sense, for the rest of us.

Australians of my generation are dismissive of American pride and the presumption that equates its expansionist foreign policy with its sense of mission. As a Christian it often seems to me a gross presumption that the free, rather than the meek, should inherit the earth – a logic that harmonises Calvinism with egalitarianism.