Humor

First off, congrats to The Crescat for her new digs on Patheos. Now I will just steal this video from her.

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Back in 2004 I covered the story of Sister Rhonda Rice is one of 16 nuns at All Hallows Convent at Ditchingham, Norfolk who had earned a Black Belt.

I had wondered what might be the weapons that a nun would train with. Then I realized the  obvous answer.

Nun-Chucks

And with these specialized weapons you know she could beat you within an inch of your life if you didn’t measure up.

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My mind being a bit warped and prone to distractions can turn something so awesome and transcendent as receiving Holy Communion into a humorous reflection.

For example at Mass this week as I approached for Communion I noticed the Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion was quite short. My thought was “Bonus” I can make a profound bow at the same time I receive Communion on the tongue.  If only we went back to only receiving on the tongue and also having very short priests, deacons and EMHC’s you could get everybody showing an external sign of reverence.

On another occasion of receiving Holy Communion the accident of bread got caught in my teeth.  I was tempted to have to use a toothpick, but I would have felt too much like St. Longinus.

Oh well maybe one day my thoughts will be closer to the reverence that Holy Communion deserves.

Yes it is voting time 6th annual Cannonball Catholic Blog anti-Awards.

So please make me an anti-awardee since I am listed under the category Best Potpouri of Popery

Obey the Hypnotoad and make an anti-vote for me.

Southern Fried Catholicism has various photos of what I would class Marian Tattoo Fail.

This one caught my eye (and I want my eye back). Considering todays feast, I think this tattoo is one of Mary’s sorrows.

I am sure this comes down somehow on a really bad translation of Luke 2:35 “and a ring will pierce through your nipple also.”

Related to today’s Gospel, here is one of my previous parodies from six years ago.

You are a committed Christian and you really want to do what Jesus tells you to do, but sometimes scriptural passages are difficult to interpret.

For example Matthew 18:21-22 says:

“Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. ”

Peter’s measure definitely seems off and if you take the Bible literally it is pretty difficult to determine when you reach the limit of 70×7 (490). Just how do you know if you have accidentally forgiven somebody 491 times or more? This can be embarrassing in difficult relationship and what if you mistakenly undercount and stop offering forgiveness at a number below 490?

That was a messy and difficult problem. That was until we at Roncoe products made the 4GiveCount counter available at your local Christian bookstore.

With the 4GiveCount counter you will always know where you are at when it comes to forgiveness. No more messy mistakes and uncertainty when it comes to mercy.

Simply enter the names of those people you come into contact with into your computer or PDA’s address book and download it via a USB cable into the 4GiveCount counter and your ready to start. Every time somebody does something and you forgive them all you have to do is select their name in the Forgive Person display and then click the forgiveness button located on the upper left side of our special counter. This will increment the forgiveness counter by one for the currently selected person.

Our counter can be set to one of three forgiveness modes.

* Peter – If you are like St. Peter and believe that seven is a generous limit for forgiveness then select the Peter mode.

* Literal – To follow just what Jesus said in the Bible select the literal 70×7 mode.

* Jesus – Some biblical interpreters hold that Jesus’ statement was meant to be symbolic by giving us a relatively high number. If you follow this interrelation select the Jesus Infinity mode. *

When you increment the forgiveness counter and it detects that you have forgiven them past the upper limit as determined by the selected forgiveness mode- the Mercy Overload lamp will start to flash to warn you that you need not offer forgiveness. That’s all there is to it and you will always be sure you have done your part.

But wait there is more!!! If you order your own 4GiveCount counter by midnight tonight we will throw in a blessing counter. You are always being told to count your blessings and it is just so easy in the rush of everyday life to loose track. With our reliable and durable blessing counter you will always know just how blessed you are!

* If you select the Jesus Infinity mode and you notice that no matter how many times you increment a persons forgiveness index that the Mercy Overload lamp never comes on – don’t worry this is normal operation. This accurately simulates Jesus in that no matter how high your current forgiveness index is, his Mercy Overload lamp also never lights.

* The graphic was done by Brad Sutton, a Point Church Pastor, who  saw this parody over at SperoNews and referred to in in a sermon and even created a new graphic for it that was much better than my original graphic.

If there was a Catholic Fail blog here is a picture I would submit.

Kevin Miller who is an Associate Professor of Theology at  Franciscan University of Steubenville actually received this in the mail from a religious order.

There is the recent news story about the Sacramento priest who showed up a a baptism drunk.

He was subsequently suspended while the diocese looks into what happened. I think it was all a terrible misunderstanding. I imagine this is what really happened.

Church Secretary: Father, will you be available Saturday to come in to dunk.

Father: Well, okay.

Just a simple misunderstanding and maybe time for a hearing test.

Heres a post from 2005:

I have some exciting news for you now that the press embargo has been lifted. I have been out of country for the last two days to attend a first-of-a-kind event.

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the first annual World Misspent-Youth Day that was held in Bonn, Germany. Our event was much more low-key than World Youth Day going on adjacently in Cologne and the Holy Father did not want WM-YD to upstage WYD. The above is the official logo for WM-YD which has St. Augustine pictured on it since he can truly be considered to be the patron saint of misspent-youth. World Misspent-Youth Day was open to those 35 and above who in their youth lead lives not exactly pious, which really means open to all of us 35 and above. This was the first year for this event and of course there were problems and other wrinkles (which only makes sense) that developed. In spite of that I believe it was fairly successful and that we will see future WM-YDs in the future.

The event was only one day long because most of the participants have family and jobs to get back to and just can’t spend a week at a festival. I haven’t heard the official count on attendance yet, but it was fairly substantial. Looking at the middle-aged to elderly crowd of participants it almost looked like a Call To Action convention if it wasn’t for the fact that people wore scapulars, carried Rosaries, and shouted with glee when the Holy Father arrived. There were many allowances made to make us feel at home and not to feel awkward.

In a change of pace the Holy Father arrived on the custom made Papal Motorcycle. I heard that this was symbolic for those of us who have had a mid-life crisis and suddenly bought a Harley-Davidson or a convertible to try to recapture our youth and was also an attempt at levity. He rode surprisingly well and you will notice in picture that he wore a specially made white zucchetto reinforced with carbon fibres for protection.

He later rode in a reinvention of the popemobile the papal golf cart to appeal to those of us who had retired or taken up the purgative sport of golf.

We were really surprised when the Holy Father showed up at the tailgate party in the parking lot of the event. Though when he asked for some German sausage and we didn’t have any cooked up you could see his disappointment. Lesson learned – always have some good German sausages on the grill prepared for these events.

After the tailgate party they started to do the blessings of the lawn chairs and ice chests full of German beer. I think the Holy Father was taken aback a little bit when he first appeared on the stage and we held our lit lighters aloft, but he recovered quickly and said for us to spread the light of Christ. One of the highlights of the event was the homily given by the Holy Father and here are some excerpts as I remember them.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, `You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, `Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, `Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, `You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, `Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, `These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, `Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you.[Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

Dear friends,

As we reflect on this beautiful passage from Matthew, I welcome you who have finally entered the vineyard at the noon hour. Do not fret that you did not serve the Lord sooner but fall down in adoration in thanks giving and live out your life in the grace you have received. Do not begrudge those who have not yet entered the vineyard which is Holy Mother Church, but fast and pray that they too will enter. As the great Doctor of the Church for whose today’s event is dedicated said “Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, Late have I loved you!” We must persist in that love of him who loved us first. Though in the past you were willful minions in the dictatorship of relativism you are now new creatures in Christ! Go forth and spread the good news with your new-found zeal and remember that your past sins have been forgiven and are as far as the East is from the West. …

“When the culture of death pushes you, you must push back.”

Another cool part of the event was the communal penance service followed by individual confession. He continued the tradition of Pope John Paul II for purging of memory and apologized for the Church and level of catechesis so prevalent since the sixties. Another ceremony was held for us baby boomers in which we were forgiven for our radical individualism, self-centeredness, materialism, and for foolish idealism that put faith in the power of government. The list he mentioned of things us baby boomers were responsible for was actually much longer, but unfortunately I didn’t bring any kind of recorder and it was much too long for me to remember.

After the Pope Benedict XVI had left the event was capped off with a concert which included Styx and REO Speedwagon. Styx did a special version of Lady dedicated to Our Lady and REO Speedwagon sang Riding the Storm out on a stage shaped like the Bark of Peter. It was rumored that Journey was also going to show, but it looks like my prayers were answered and they didn’t.

The Pope didn’t commit to doing this again or say where the next WM-YD might be held. Many of us our kind of hoping for Hawaii, Rio de Janeiro, or the French Rivera. Overall it was really fun and hopefully next time it will publicized well in advance. Though I can hardly blame them for keeping this one under wraps since you could hardly know how a large group of us all together would turn out. At least it kept the condom-pushers and other dissidents from attending. I just hope next time they have a concession pharmacy for those that need blood-pressure medicine, pills for arthritis, and assorted pharmaceuticals for other maladies.