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| Moist Heart (book) |
Subtitled "A Compendium for Private or Public Worship;" this a series of brief prayers, focusing on various purposes, that parody the structure of short prayers said at various times during Mass [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 115-123]. For every Sunday and feast day, the 'movable' parts of the Mass include, in addition to an Epistle and a Gospel, a variable number of short prayers that are used; if the feast day is not too solemn to allow a substitution, these prayers for special purposes can be inserted in place. Besides containing, what is listed as A Paradigmatic Sunday Sermon, it notes the text of the following prayers:
- Prayer for Earthquakes
- Prayer for Fair Weather ("O God, Who knowest that there are some of us who live in fetid swamps which God knows do not need more rain, disregard the [Prayer for Rain], parch the mushy earth with blistering drought, dry up the mosquito-infested dank smelly lakes of which this damned state is so proud....")
- Prayer for a Holy Woman Not a Virgin, Commemorative
- Prayer for Rain
- Prayer for the Speedy Demise of a Bishop
Bowen notes his old Missal has a number of such occasional prayers with headings like "To Avert Storms" and "Against Cattle-plague." Another such prayer, one of those "Against Enemies and Evil-doers" goes: "We beg Thee, Lord, to crush the pride of our enemies and by the power of Thy right hand to break their stubborn wills." As in John's collection, there are prayers both for and against rain, "though the ones in my Missal bear little resemblance to his."
Bowen also explains that it's customary when a prayer is for someone specific (such as the deceased at a funeral Mass, or the Pope when he is being prayed for) to represent the person's name with the letter N in the text of the prayer. It works just as well in Latin as in English (name = nomen). Thus "the superfluous N.," "the agnostic N.," and so on.
"I trust you didn't miss the indication of John's tender regard for Minnesota in the Prayer for Fair Weather," notes Bowen, a place fellow friend Gerald Kadish notes Bellairs always referred to as "St. Teresa's in the Swamps" (also see Montana Women's College). |
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