As a Pre-Lent season, we are expected to celebrate Carnival praying and meditating, rather than playing funny jokes or wearing eccentric costumes.

Since Carnival is a time of preparation to the 40 days of penance and food abstinence, the beautiful prayer of Good Humor, written by Saint Thomas More, is a good compromise if you don't want to give up neither on joy nor on your spirituality during Carnival. It is a hymn to the sense of good humor, a fundamental human quality which helps us “discover in life a bit of joy” every day.

Pope Francis revealed that he recites this prayer every morning, because God wants us to be happy.

St. Thomas More’s 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.

Who was St. Thomas More

Thomas More (1478 – 1535) was an English lawyer, philosopher, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. His best-known literary work is the essay Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary, ideal island nation.

More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular, the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. More also refused to acknowledge King Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason, then beheaded. Pope Pius XI canonized More in 1935 as a martyr. In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared him the "heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians".

 

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