Humor

Here is a simple test to tell the difference between a Catholic and a Cafeteria Catholic.

One goes through the catechism and other Church documents and says amen, the other says amend.

The Ironic Catholic has a list of worship Faux Pas and how to avoid them. I will highlight one that I found especially funny and true.

7. Kneeling etiquette: once done, sit back S L O W L Y to avoid slamming your back into someone’s folded hands.

The rest of the list is equally funny.

Well I am always game for stealing a good idea:

• If the church actually has kneelers please slide the kneeler up when you go to Communion so others in the same row do no have to to the narrow shuffle side step.
• If you receive Communion in the hand remember that your car keys and cell phone are maybe accessories in the Body of Christ, but can’t receive themselves – put them away first.
• Asking the person who just came out of a confessional both after a long time in confession "What the heck did you do?" is not considered appropriate.
• Regardless of how banal the songs the choir is singing, it is not polite to shout out requests.
• Continuously pointing at your watch for the priest to see during the homily is considered rude.
• Do not bring the music issue of the missal home to use as toilet paper, no matter how appropriate.
• If you have a 103 degree temperature and your nose is running faster than Flo-Jo you might want to skip Mass and not try to shake the hands of half the congregation.
• If your a Protestant convert please avoid yelling out "Idolater" when a parishioner touches a statue.
• Dip your hand slowly into the Holy Water font, please don’t splash.
• "The Mass is ended, go in peace" is not meant to be the same as a starter pistol going off indicating that you need to run out of the Mass as fast as you can to avoid traffic in the parking lot.

Basilica catholic church in Aparecida do Norte.

"It’s really hard to genuflect when your a dog."

"This parish recently provided guide dogs to help parishioners find where the tabernacle is hidden."

Today being the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, though this year it is superceded by the Sunday celebration, here is some Summa Wrestlers.

In a post about Divine Movers – a real moving company – Ironic Catholic says:

Yep, they’re for real. Divine Moving serves the New York tri-state area.

I guess the rest of the world is out of luck. So much for the Great Commission, hmmm….

And if they were proper Thomists? "Prime Movers Incorporated". Their advertizing could explain "the five ways" why it is proper that they exist.

On the up side, the Divine has references, BBB approval, and what gives me the most theological heebie jeebies, coupons.

Well I once did a post on possible companies that included this:

Paul Nichols has outdone himself with his latest.

I once wrote a post called Conversion and Mr. Magoo since I associate my conversion with with his blind blunders ending up in the right place.

Carl Olson of Ignatius Insight posted a story on the last Pope John Paul II sneaking out for skip trips during his years at the Vatican. Carl in his last line said.

Hilarious! No word yet if Pope Benedict is also covertly sneaking out of the Vatican, not to ski but to visit used bookstores.

Now that really made me laugh and I can really imagine our book loving Pope going out on the sly perusing shelves for more books to get. I remember reading one quote from the pope when he was talking about the impermanence of things. Mountains will pass away and at one point he said, I believe, "even books" will pass away. I laugh when I read that also since it was so indicative of the Pope’s personality and his love of books. The Pope’s endears me to him even more.

Now I consider myself a bibliophile, though not as well read as the Pope or many members of St. Blogs. I also read a lot of books where their copyright has expired and their text is available on the internet. Mostly I convert them using text-to-speech software to listen to on my iPod/computer. Though sometimes I am disappointed to find that a book is not quite old enough yet to be freely available. I once fantasized about wanting a time machine so that I could go into the future passed the expiration of their copyright – downloading them – and returning home. Though I am not quite sure about all the moral ramifications of this. Is a book downloaded in the future and then subsequently read in the present a violation of copyright?

Jan. 17, 2007 (CWNews.com) – The international Catholic charitable organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) will send a specially designed minibus known as the “confessional car” to a tourism fair in Essen, Germany, in February.

Father Hermann-Joseph Hubka of ACN will introduce the vehicle, which was made to fit the needs of vacationers seeking the sacrament of Penance. For three years the minibus has been in use under the patronage of Augsburg Bishop Walter Mix.

In recent years ACN has built “chapel boats” to be used on rivers in Brazil and Russia, providing for the spiritual needs of people living along rivers, far away from a church. Plans to introduce the "confessional car" at a tourism exhibition were announced on the same day that the Pontifical Council for Migrants released a report encouraging new pastoral strategies to address the needs of travelers.

No word yet if the confessional cars will only be available on Saturdays for 15 minutes to make American tourists feel at home.

un-Muted Mumblings blogs:

As the temperature dips into the low single digits (or below zero according to some), I ran into some particularly Catholic experiences this morning. So here is my "A Catholic knows it is cold when:"

– Your lips freeze to the metal crucifix as you kiss your Rosary for the morning commute.
– You bless yourself with holy ice instead of holy water from the font by the front door.
– You experience an apparition walking by the front yard statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary; she isn’t crying, but she appears to be shivering.
– The Rosary swinging from the rear view mirror chips ice off the windshield as you slam on the brakes.

and the number one way to know it is cold (not exclusive to Catholics)

– The environmentalists stop talking about global warming.

Funny stuff. Now here is my Florida counterpoint.

A Catholic knows it’s hot when.

• You fill up your Holy Water font five times a day because it keeps evaporating.
• You have a cross shaped burn mark on your lip from kissing your crucifix.
• You squeeze to rinse your scapular daily because of the all the sweat it has absorbed.
• You never buy a Rosary with black beads because they retain too much heat.
• The plastic Jesus on your dashboard melted.
• There are no miraculous statues of Mary since her tears evaporate before anybody notices anything.
• You burned your fingers blessing yourself at Mass from a Holy Water font warmed by sunlight through the stained glass windows.
• Your church bulletin is printed on asbestos.

And the number one way Catholics know that it is hot

• You start to wonder just how bad Purgatorial flames can be in the first place.