Jesus Christ, you traveled through towns and villages “curing every disease and illness.” Come to our aid now, that we may experience your healing love.

“The function of prayer is not to influence God,” Kierkegaard said, “but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

It is a beautiful thing when the sacred and the quirky come together in such a way that only Catholicism can arrange.

I have stopped praying for years at a time. I started praying again not because I think God wants me to but because prayer turns me into one kind of person and no prayer turns me into a different kind of person.