PRAYER FOR TOURISTS
Heavenly Father, look down on us your humble obedient tourist servants who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, mailing postcards, buying souvenirs and walking around in drip dry underwear;
Give us this day divine guidance in the selection of our hotels, that we may find our reservations honored, our rooms made up and hot [clean] water running from the faucets;
We pray that the telephones work, and the operators speak our tongue;
Lead us, dear Lord, to good inexpensive restaurants where the food is superb, the waiters friendly and the wine included in the price;
Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand. Forgive us for under-tipping out of ignorance and over-tipping out of fear. Make the natives love us for what we are, and not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods.
Grant us the strength to visit the museums, the cathedrals, the palaces and castles listed as “musts” in the guidebooks;
And if perchance we skip a historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak.
FOR HUSBANDS ONLY
Dear God, keep our wives from shopping sprees and protect them from bargains they don’t need or can’t afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.
FOR WIFES ONLY
Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us. Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and night clubs [and from wearing clothes that do not match]. Above all, do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do.
