"Professional Pray-er"

I know many people who love the Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series of novels, including Julie at Happy Catholic, whose recommendations are always worth taking, but I have been so enthralled with Terry Pratchett’s Discword series, I’d neglected Harry Dresden. Harry Dresden is a Wizard, and his office door reads:

Harry Dresden – Wizard
Lost Items Found, Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting, Advice, Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment

Yesterday, in talking about the list of folks I pray for (which I keep in my breviary) Buster teased, “you should put yourself in the phonebook like Harry Dresden, only make it, “Anchoress; Professional Pray-er. If your life’s a horror-story, bring it to her Oratory!”

The thing quickly descended into dementia and bad puns as Buster riffed, “you can be like that Sham-Wow guy: “She’s got yer Jesus, she’s got yer Mary! She’ll chant you a p-salm on the pcheap! Rosaries at a nominal price, by the bead or by the decade! If you think you’re too great a sinner, if you think you can’t pray, she’ll say ‘I-con!’”

Of course, it’s a joke, and I am by no means a “professional pray-er” (those would be our our monastic friends and many, many many others, both Catholic and non-Catholic) but I did get into the joke. “I could have Billy May screaming at people in my ads,” I said, “She once was lost, but now is found! You need a saint? She’ll give you a saint a day, thousands of saints! All kindsa devotions, and no hidden fees. Is your life a big stain? She’ll get that stain out, ora pro nobleach!

Fun having the kid home from school.

But, on a more serious note, because I know so many of my readers really are heaven-stormers of the first order, people willing to pray whenever a need is known, (and particularly if you keep a prayer list of your own) I’m asking you to please remember to pray for Elizabeth, a 29 year old woman, who has just learned she has an inoperable brain tumor, and faces a very tough road.

This is where I would incorporate the helpful prayers of of our friend, John Cardinal O’ Connor, who also had a brain tumor.

Let us pray.

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