Humor

 When meeting the pope it is
customary to offer him a gift, and Benedict XVI has amassed many tokens
of esteem. Former British prime minister Tony Blair gave him a painting
of the Catholic convert Cardinal Newman and Saudi Arabia’s King
Abdullah presented him with a jeweled scimitar.

When the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, met the pontiff he gave him
the Holy Grail, a beer brewed in Masham, North Yorkshire.

It was the highlight of the archbishop’s first trip to Rome to
celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and to cement cordial
relations between the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches.

Following their 15-minute chat in the Basilica di San Paolo Fuori le
Mura, believed to be the burial place of St Paul, Sentamu said: “I told
the brewery I was meeting the pope and they made a special brew for
him. I heard he’d been given some Black Sheep ale and liked it. So I
brought that and the Holy Grail.”

The gifts pleased the pope, who is Bavarian by birth and prefers beer
to wine and water. That the tipple was a one-off would have also suited
a pontiff with designer flourishes. During a two-hour service, which
was peppered with incense, chanting, coughing and ringtones, his
ruby-red Prada loafers peeped out from under his ivory robes.

“I was very impressed by the pope,” Sentamu said. “He cares about human
beings. He is such a deep theologian, it drives him to compassion. He
is not a starchy person, but people look at his writings, they are very
precise, and think he is like that … but he is very warm.”

This
is the beer given which includes the motto “Tempered over burning
witches.”  Which prompts the question “What is the speed of
the unladen sparrow and are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not
one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s will. “

PHOENIX — Football fans struggling to
find a place to stay for the Super Bowl may not be entirely out of
luck: there are still beds available at the local monastery.

The Benedictine nuns of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Phoenix are
renting out rooms during Super Bowl week for $250 a night, plus $50
extra for each additional person. That’s not an unreasonable fee,
considering a nearby Super 8 Motel is charging $500 a night.

“It’s a different twist for us in the sense that we’ve never opened the
monastery for an event like the Super Bowl,” said Sister Linda of the
Benedictine Sisters of Phoenix. “It’s just a different clientele than
we’re accustomed to.”

The nuns said they plan to use the money to pay for some property they
purchased adjacent to the monastery.

Though the sisters won’t impose a curfew, lodgers at the monastery will
have to abide by a few rules: no smoking, no rowdy behavior and most
importantly, no alcohol.

Super Bowl fans will have to have their crazy fun elsewhere, but at
least confession is conveniently located.

“I would think that God’s got to be excited about the Super Bowl as
well,” Sister Linda said. “He wants people to enjoy life.”

This makes sense since the rule of St.
Benedict Chapter 53 says:

Let all Super Bowl fans who arrive be
received as Christ, because He will say: “I was a stranger and you took
Me in” (Mt 25:35). And let due honor be shown to all, especially to
those fans of the opposing team to the one you like.

Let the kitchen of the Abbot and the guests be apart, that the brethren
may not be disturbed by the guests who arrive at uncertain times
because of Super Bowl parties and who are never wanting in the
monastery. Let two brothers who are able to fulfill this office well go
into the kitchen for a year to be able to provide the guests with
appropriate snacks such as Buffalo Wings and a tray of cold cuts and
cheeses.

The spouse of the Ironic Catholic has a funny two-part post on “Why did the chicken cross” the road from the perspective of saints, theologians, etc.

Here is just a small sample to whet your appetite.

Augustine: Late have I crossed the road, so ancient and so new. Late have I crossed you.

Francis of Assisi: It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. Therefore, I crossed the road.

Flannery O’Connor: The chicken was struck by a truck while crossing the road, but experienced a flash of grace in the instant of its death. I prefer peacocks anyway.

Part 1.
Part 2.

Well the sincerest form of flattery is imitation so I will try to be sincere with some flattery.

• Karl Rahner – If the chicken has made a fundamental option to cross the road then he will indeed cross the road
• G.K. Chesterton – A chicken decided to go to a foreign country and to invent his own heresies. What the chicken found instead is that in fact he had never left his country and had crossed the road and discovered that his heresies were orthodoxy.
• Therese de Lisieux – If the chicken decides to make himself small, God will lift him up and place him on the other side of the road.
• Sister Joan D. Chittister – The chicken crossed the road as a sign of prophetic road crossing to get away from the male dominated hierarchy
• Saint Benedict – The chicken crossed the road to get away from me even though I assured him I was not the Benedict assocated with eggs.
• Saint Jerome – The chicken crossed the road since some fool left the vulgate open and he escaped.
• Saint Ignatius – The chicken crossed the road out of obedience to the Holy Father. The chicken should always be disposed to believe that that crossing the road is good, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.
• Blessed Mother Teresa – The chicken crossed the road to help the poorest of the poor chickens.
• Saint John of the Cross – The chicken crossed the road because he realized he was attached to this side of the road.  The chicken that is attached to one side of the road however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union.
• Saint Anthony the Great – Obviously the chicken crossed the road to get to the desert to purge himself because he suffered from boredom, laziness, and the phantoms of hens.
• Saint Domenic – I suspect that the chicken had Albigensian sympathies since he crossed the road when he saw me coming to preach.
• Saint Anthony of Padua – I have no idea why the chicken crossed the road, but fish I have experience preaching to.
• Saint Joseph – The chicken received a dream over the night warning him to cross the road.

Update: Alive and Young has some examples from other perspectives.

Vatican, Dec. 31, 2007 (CWNews.com) – The Vatican will soon issue a new document clarifying the terms of Summum Pontificum, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has revealed.

Confirming reports that have circulated around Rome in recent weeks, the Vatican Secretary of State told the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana that the Ecclesia Dei commission will issue instructions to “clarify the criteria for the application of the motu proprio” in which Pope Benedict XVI broadened access to the traditional Latin Mass.

Cardinal Bertone said that the new document was needed because there have been some “confused reactions” to the motu proprio. In fact some Vatican officials– most notably Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship– have energetically criticized bishops who have failed to accept the papal directive.

This news came out earlier this week, but I have been working with my contacts to try to get more information. In a world exclusive I have gotten hold of the new document which is being released in a format that up to now has never been used before by the Vatican. I don’t know how it will be received by some bishops, but I think the new format will be helpful for them.

And here is a sample page.

Here is a headline that doesn’t sound quite right.

KCK Priest dies after 63 years at the altar

A small, highly religious town in southwest Louisiana has finally gained the right to change their 666 area code, which they consider a stigma.
For 40 years the town of Reeves, La., has battled to change the phone prefix, but has failed at least four times, Mayor Scott Walker told The Associated Press.

But beginning this month, residents and businesses can apply to change their area code from 666 to 749.

This boils down to, this is a very, very religious community, Walker said, according to AP.
The town has three churches, two Bible and one Baptist, in a community with less than 450 homes.

This reminds me of another recent story.

The highway that stretches from Laredo to Duluth, Minn., has grabbed the attention of Christians across the country, including those in Austin.

Members of Christian groups along the I-35 corridor said the highway was mentioned in the Bible, and in order to fulfill a prophecy, it needs a little saving first.
According to Light The Highway, the worldwide movement is driving thousands to prayer on the interstate. Christians said the Old Testament’s book of Isaiah prophesizes I-35 will be the United States’ “Highway of Holiness.”
Isaiah 35:8 reads: “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.”

“Everything we do, we want to make sure scripture is backing us up,” said Austin’s PromiseLand Church Pastor Charlie Lujan. “I-35 being Isaiah 35, it just matched.”

Friends don’t let friends use Sola Scriptura.

*Is.11:1 and Rom.15:12

Related post – The Mathsiah

If true this is a pretty funny.

"Who is your favorite author?" Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

"My favorite author is C. S. Lewis," she said.

Candidates do have strange answers at times to this question. Mitt Romney replied before that Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard was his favorite novel. On one level that answer makes a lot of sense since L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith have a lot in common in that both made up their own religions. But on a literary taste level Battlefield Earth was just a so-so SF novel that really needed an editor. Though if Mitt had replied that Battlefield Earth was his favorite movie I think that would have totally disqualified him from running for president. But Mitt seems to have flipped (what a surprise) on his literary choice since his Facebook entry lists a bunch of novels as his favorites and none of them were Battlefield Earth.

Mike Huckabee’s Facebook page lists his favorite books as "
The Holy Bible, To Kill a Mockingbird, Mere Christianity, and anything by Francis Schaeffer." So he really blew it with the seven year old and would have done much better mentioning Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

Sen. John McCain’s favorite novel is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" which is also the theme for his campaign.

For Rudy Giuliani his selections "Testimony by Nicolas Sarkozy, Churchill, Their Finest Hour, Profiles in Courage, Lincoln, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life" seem like books he would ask someone to come up with to make him look smart. Can you trust a guy that can’t list one piece of fiction other then his conservative credentials?

Neither Duncan Hunter or Ron Paul’s Facebook page list any favorite books.

There is the old joke sometimes told by pastors of people calling them up and asking them what time Midnight Mass is. I guess thought that in parts of Britain the question is a valid one.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) – Roman Catholic churches across Britain plan to stage midnight mass early on Christmas Eve to avoid drunk revelers on the loose after the pubs shut.

A survey by the Catholic weekly magazine The Tablet showed churches planned to hold mass as early as six in the evening to avoid running the risk of disturbance from drunks staggering out of the pub at the traditional closing time of 11 p.m.

“A lot of people, having been disgorged from the pub, were attracted to the light and music and used to disrupt proceedings,” said Father James O’Keefe at St Bede’s Church in the northeastern city of Newcastle.

In the Scottish city of Glasgow, Father Joseph McNulty said: “I wouldn’t hold a Midnight Mass at midnight because of the drunks. There would be too much trouble.”

In other Christmas news, Christmas is now a national holiday in Iraq. (Thanks to the reader that sent that in.)