religion: prayers

As an 7 year old Irish Catholic I was used to hearing the 'Hail Mary' But the line "blessed are thou amongst women" sounded like "blessed are thou, a Monk Swimming". At the age of 10 I was taken to a monastry and encouraged to ask questions. My question was "where is the swimming pool" ! I was the talk of the school.

Another Catholic Mass one;
I thought when the priest said “Thanks be to God” he was saying “Thanks Peter God” and that God had another name for thse who knew him well.

Lords Prayer: "and Thenscehe shall come to judge the living and the dead." I always wondered who the new guy Thenscehe (thence he) was and why no one ever talked about him b/c he seemed like a pretty major guy.

When I was a kid I was afraid to say the prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep," because I thought that saying the part, "If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take" would make god think it was ok if I died in my sleep.

My husband and I realized one day that our 3 year old was praying, "God is great. God is good. Let us spank him for our food . . . "

My favorite: At the end of Mass, the priest says, "The Mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord." The parishoners reply, "Thanks be to God."

My little brother, Adam, always said, "Thanks speedy God!" -- thanking God for letting him out of church quickly.

Our father, who aren't in heaven, hollowed be thy name.

Give us the stay our daily bread...

I used to think that in the Catholic blessing that my mom says at dinnertime, she was thanking God for giving us the food "from thy bound teeth," and couldn't make any sense of it for years. I still think it sounds like that. (It's "from thy bounty," for those of you who aren't familiar with it.)

my little borther richard would not be convinced that it wasnt "our father who aren't in heaven ..."

In the church response, instead of "Thanks be to God," I thought it was "Thanks speedy God" because church goers were thanking Him for the reading being over quickly.

I used to believe that, during the lord's prayer at church, someone would play big kettle drums in the background, outside the church somewhere. I didn't work out 'til i was about 10 that it was just massed male voices making the bassy rumbles!

I used to think that the God was called Harold. Whilst saying the Lord's Prayer at school I used to say 'Harold by thy name' as apposed to 'hallowed be they name'.

In church when the response to the gospel reading was thanks be to God, I though it was thanks Peter God, and God was called Peter.

In the Hail Mary prayer, I used to say 'Bless a dark fowl among women' rather than 'blessed art though'

I used to believe that God was actually at the back of the hall when you had to pray in the morning assembly before school. Even more stupidly I believed that if you didn't shut your eyes for the whole prayer, he would burn them out with lighting. So I plucked up the courage after probably about a year of this behaviour and looked back one day... when God wasn't there I let out a yelp of relief and was promptly caned in front of the whole school. Strangely, I don't really believe in God that much anymore.