“Prayer for Good Humor”
Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good
and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,
but rather finds the means to put things back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments,
nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.”
Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.
—written by St. Thomas More, the 16th-century English lawyer, social philosopher, and statesman who was famously beheaded in 1535 by Henry VIII for refusing to accept him as the Head of the Church. His last words were said to have been “I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”
*Note: If you ever see this prayer, which is seldom, you only see the last three lines:
“Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.”