Of You and Your Works Are We Always Awed

Calvary Church in Pittsburgh, an Episcopal church in an affluent neighborhood known before that diocese divided as one of its bastions of liberalism, recently presented its people with A Seusscharist , “based on the works of Theodore Seuss Geisel.”

Yes. Exactly. It begins:

Celebrant Father, Son, and Spirit Holy. Blessed be God:
People Of you and your works are we always awed. Amen.

All Almighty God
to you all hearts are open wide,
All of our want-wanting in you we confide
and from you our secrets we just can not hide:

Clean the thinks of our thumpers

And we shall be happy jump-jumpers.

So, by the help of your Holy Ghost,

Your Name we may deservingly boast;

through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The red is on the original. It gets better, or worse, depending on your point of view, though even the writers, I am pleased to see, didn’t dare mess with the Lord’s Prayer. They did rewrite the whole eucharistic prayer, including Jesus’ words, which is nearly as disconcerting.

The imitation-Seuss does suggest that writing like that is harder than it looks.