What is your favorite blessing/prayer in your religion?

[Meshuga]

I mean in a humorous way. A "favorite" prayer in your religion that always made you laugh when you heard parts of it? Or made you giggle when you thought about the blessing?

My favorite Jewish blessing is called asher yatsar which is the one recited when exiting the bathroom after using the can and washing your hands:

Baruch atah Adonai
Eloheinu, Melech haolam,
asher yatzar et haadam b’chochmah
uvara vo n’kavim n’kavim,
chalulim, chalulim.
Galui v’yadua lifnei chisei ch’vodecha
she-im y’patei-ach echad meihem
o yisateim echad meihem,
i efshar l’hitkayeim
v’laamod l’fanecha.
Baruch atah, Adonai,
rofei chol basar umafli laasot.

It translates to:

Praised be You, Adonai our God,
Ruler of the universe,
who fashioned the human body (literally, “man”)
in wisdom and created in him many openings
and orifices.
It is well known before Your glorious throne
that if one of them were to be opened (wrongly)
or be stopped up (wrongly),
it would be impossible to stand before You.

Obviously you should say, "Todah rabbah Hashem!" ("Thanks a lot, God!"), in a sarcastic tone, if you leave the bathroom constipated. :-)

[eShirl]

1. they all seem strange to me

having been raised in a Quaker family

even when people say grace before a meal (our closest thing was holding hands around the table in silence)

[norepubsin08]

2. St. Patrick's Breastplate

Christ before me
Christ behind me
Christ beside me
in all of my days.....

[Marrah_G]

3. This is a bit different from a prayer, but here is my contribution

This is the older version, it is a small portion of what we call an invocation. It is beautiful when spoken.

"I who am the beauty of the green earth; and the White Moon amongst the Stars; and the mystery of the Waters; and the desire of the heart of man. I call unto thy soul: arise and come unto me. "For I am the Soul of nature who giveth life to the Universe; 'From me all things proceed; and unto me, all things must return.' Beloved of the Gods and men, thine inmost divine self shall be enfolded in the raptures of the infinite. "Let my worship be within the heart that rejoiceth, for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals; and therefore let there be Beauty and Strength, Power and Compassion, Honour and Humility, Mirth and reverence within you. "And thou who thinkest to seek me, know that thy seeking and yearning shall avail thee not unless thou know the mystery, that if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee, for behold; I have been with thee from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire." -Gardner/Valiente

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. To quote "Fiddler"

There is a blessing for all things.
Even for the Tsar?
Even for the Tsar: May the Lord bless and keep the Tsar...far away from us.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. A bedtime prayer based on the Great Litany of the Episcopal Church

From ghosties and ghoulies
and little wee beasties
and things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us.

In case you are interested, the Great Litany is available here. The Book of Common Prayer is available online at http://www.bcponline.org/

Edited for formatting.

[smoogatz]

6. Rub-a-dub-dub

Thanks for the grub.

[tinrobot]

7. Ek Ong Kaur Sat Nam Siri Wahe Guru

I just like the way it sounds when chanted.

[knitter4democracy]

8. The funniest one is the prayer for blessing a car.

Somehow, three of us all bought cars around the same time last year, so Father had a blessing (we're Eastern Orthodox--we bless everything). The older terms got me and Father's wife giggling so badly we couldn't stop.

This is a lot like it (though it was obviously a translation from Russian that used older terms, like automobile instead of car):
Priest: Let us pray to the Lord.

Response: Lord, have mercy.

Priest: Lord our God, You make the clouds your conveyance; You travel on the wings of the wind; You sent to your servant Elijah a fiery chariot as a means of conveyance; You guided man to invent this car which is as fast as the wind: Therefore, O Lord, pour now upon it your heavenly blessings. Grant unto it a guardian angel that it may be guided upon the rightful road and be preserved against all harm. Enable those who ride in this car to arrive safely at their destination. For in your ineffable Providence, You are the Provider of all things, and to You we give glory, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.

The priest sprinkles the car three times with holy water, each time saying:

May this car be blessed + in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And then Father got so upset that we were laughing so badly that he got us extra good with the holy water. Still, it just hit us as so funny.

As for my real favorite, I love the Triodion: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us (three times). Singing it is even better.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Here's mine

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.

Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.
--------------

[Igel]

10. No set prayers or blessings in my denomination.

There were only really a very few public blessings of any kind, and those were always free form in content and in word choice. The first was the blessing of the bread and wine on Passover night, and the second was the blessing of the children on the Last Great Day(on "the last, the great day of the Feast"), both after Jesus' example. Both also done by a presiding minister or whoever was leading the congregation.

There were the occasional public prayers--opening and closing church services and giving thanks for any meals we had between services on high days. Whoever was in charge of organization for the service sort of randomly picked somebody to give those prayers, and the content varied from a quick 15-second 'thanks, God' to a 5-minute mini-sermon, whatever the person wanted to say. The organizers quickly learned to avoid some people--those who couldn't shut up, and those who really didn't like giving the prayers.

I always liked Deut. 30:10-20, though. Always regarded it as parallel to the Sermon on the Mount.

[rug]

11. Blessing of cheese (or butter).

Let us pray.

Lord God eternal,
please bless and sanctify this cheese (or butter)
which You have been so kind as to produce from the fat of animals.
Grant that all Your faithful ones who partake of it
may be filled with every heavenly blessing
and with much grace abound in good works,
through Christ our Lord.

R. Amen.

(Then it is sprinkled with holy water.)


http://www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/english3/p02616.htm

[AccessGranted]

12. My Father Got In Trouble For This One On Thanksgiving

My father used to hate to say the blessing before dinner, but one year my mother was still in the kitchen cooking, so she told him he had to say one, so we could all eat and he said,

"Good bread, good meat. Thanks Lord, "Let's eat!"

My mother got so pissed. We were little kids then and thought it was hysterical.

[AccessGranted]

13. Fleshpots and Leaping Like A Stag

I'm agnostic, but my SO is Catholic, so every once in a while I'll go to mass with him and one day they were reading a passage and it said something about "Fleshpots" and "Leaping Like A Stag". I don't know why both of those phrases struck me as terribly funny. I was laughing so hard I almost fell off the pew.

[ironbark]

14. “May your chickens turn into Emus

And kick your outhouse door down”

Is an expression of well wishing/blessing among antipodeans who take neither life, religion, themselves or poultry probabilities very seriously.

[Phx_Dem]

15. That bracha is said after surgery also I think. nt

[Meshuga]

16. It is a bracha affirming well being so it makes sense

The "openings" and "orifices" are not limited to the ones implied by the OP. :-)

[Phx_Dem]

17. when I was a kid my favorite prayer/hymn was adon olam

You probably can guess why.