What's What: Prayer for Fair Weather

The Moist Heart missal lists several prayers for Mass, including this one that counters the previous Prayer for Rain and instead asks heavenly guidance to parch the mushy earth [Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies; 119).

The chapter is a parody of missals that contains short prayers and songs used during Mass. For every Sunday and feast day, the “movable” parts of the Mass include an Epistle, a Gospel, and a variable number of short prayers that are used

Charles Bowen, John's friend from Notre Dame, notes his old missal has a number of such occasional prayers with headings like “To Avert Storms” and “Against Cattle-plague.” As in John’s collection, there are prayers both for and against rain, “though the ones in my Missal bear little resemblance to his.”

Kepe in mind Saint Fidgeta was published shortly John's two-year teaching stint in Winona, Minnesota, and Bowen also is quick to point out John's tender regard for the state, the so-named Land of 10,000 Lakes, in the prayer:

"...dry up the mosquito-infested dank smelly lakes of which this damned state is so proud."

Officially Minnesota is proud of its 11,842 unique lakes, from Aaron to Zumbra.