Catholic Answers: Karl's E-Letter:
"EVEN YOUR PARISH DOESN'T HAVE IT THIS BAD

Perhaps you hear ill-formed or banal intercessory prayers during Mass at your parish. Many Catholics do. But cheer up--it could be far worse. Your priest could be selecting the prayers from 'Prayers of the Faithful,' edited by Fr. Henry Fehren and published by Liturgical Press.

Fehren is the author of seven books, has appeared in fifteen movies, and has written a regular column for 'U.S. Catholic.' Perhaps his best known book is 'Good News for Alienated Catholics.'

Here are samples of what you have been spared:

1. 'For employers whose primary interest is in efficiency, self-confidence, and good appearance, that they will also hire the ugly ...'

2. 'For a frost that will tarnish the value of gold and put sparkle into the dullness of life ...'

3. 'For a society where we don't have to make a million dollars, run the 100 in ten seconds, invent a laser, or die in order to be believed ...'

4. 'For soldiers who don't get mail, children who flunk, showgirls who grow old ...'

5. For put-down, stepped on, squelched children exiled to live in dark caverns ...'

6. 'For the smell of new rain, for pumpkins and Snoopy, for the aroma of homemade bread, for cotton candy, for funny looking animals like giraffes and koalas and human beings ...'

7. 'For dissenters and the right to dissent ...'"
Via the Curt Jester.