Four basic prayers

When you come right down to it,
    there are only four basic prayers.

            Gimme!

                Thanks!

                    Oops!

                        and Wow!

Rabbi Marc Gellman, New York Times Magazine, September 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: The Fiddler of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like a wave of the sea.

                William Butler Yeats

For good or evil

Ireland, sir, for good or evil,
    is like no other place under heaven,
        and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air
            without becoming better or worse.

                    George Bernard Shaw, John Bull's Other Island

 

 

 

 

 

Brigid of Kildare, Patron Saint of Ireland

I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us.
I would like an abundance of peace.
I would like full vessels of charity.
I would like rich treasures of mercy.
I would like cheerfulness to preside over all.
I would like Jesus to be present.
I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts.
I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord;
    that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me.
I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity.

        Prayer traditionally attributed to St. Brigid, said to be able to turn water into beer

Too bad it didn't last

Ireland is unique in religious history for being the only land
        into which Christianity was introduced without bloodshed.

                                Thomas Cahill, 2001 CNN interview