Humor

FOWLER, Mich. (AP) — Identical twins Gary and Todd Koenigsknecht have shared many moments together, including working on their parents’ farm, but in August they will embark on a new journey — college.

The 18-year-old twins from Fowler will enter St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., where they will study to become Catholic priests.

“They don’t need to take several years to find themselves,” the Rev. Tim MacDonald, pastor at their home parish, told the Lansing State Journal for a story published Sunday. “They seem to have a clear idea of where they’re going, and they’d like to start doing it tomorrow.”

Gary and Todd are among the top 10 students at Fowler High School and the fourth and fifth of 10 children ranging in age from 7 to 24.

Their parents, Brian and Agnes, ensured they didn’t become distracted by fun and games.

All of the children went to Catholic school through eighth grade, and Mom and Dad got rid of the family’s television set about 15 years ago and encouraged their kids to read instead.

“I can barely remember the TV,” said Todd, who is the older twin by four minutes.

Occasionally they watch DVDs and use computers, but they only use them for games on weekends.

That didn’t bother Todd and Gary. They stayed busy by helping at church in the fourth grade, when they were trained as altar servers.

“They were horrible servers. I almost made them quit,” their mother said. “If one of them messed up, they would just look at each other, and that made it worse.”

Eventually, they began reading from the Bible at church services and decided on a career of priesthood.

They will be among a freshman class of 130 students.

Though Todd was first to express an interest in priesthood, Gary insists he is not just following his brother.

“People don’t become priests because they’re following in their brother’s footsteps,” Gary said. “That wouldn’t make a very good priest at all.”

You can easily imagine the fun they could have in the seminary and the parish like in the old Patty Duke show. In fact if assigned to the same parish they could easily fool the parishioners into believing they have the gift of bilocation.

REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi (VATICAN)

"I told Cardinal Marini that this wouldn’t make an effective umbrella."

A reader sent me a link to an article that included the following picture.

I had some hope that it wouldn’t be a Catholic Church, though this being predominately Catholic Malta I knew the chance was slim. The explanation behind the design is unintentionally hilarious. The type of stuff that makes parody difficult when real-world explanations like these exist.

The designs for the Hal-Farrug church are the ones that will eventually be presented to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Prof. England said the church "has been conceived primarily as a church for our time; a composite structure based on a geometry of rotations, inclinations, oscillations and fluctuations.

"This apparent anti-order of forms may be read as a reflection of not only the current overall general global agitation but also of the present turbulence and difficulties being encountered today by the Catholic Church itself as an institution.

"The dark inclined entrance tunnel provides the visitor with a ‘rite of passage’ transition from external secular space to internal sacred space. One cannot approach a sacred space casually!

Though approaching this one you might become a casualty from all the sharp objects.

"The tunnel entrance is therefore conceived as a pathway that prepares the churchgoers, a profane shadowland threshold which opens at its end to the exuberant illuminated light well of the church interior. For internally the church is washed and bathed in light, a light clothed arena which attempts, with its inclined cylindrical masses, to manifest in architectural terms Pope John Paul II’s requisites for sacred spaces as laid out in his Letter to Artists: ‘the functional must be wedded to the creative impulse, yet always inspired by a sense of the beautiful together with an intuition of mystery’.

I have a feeling this structure is not what Pope John Paul II was getting at, especially since the paragraph he quoted from talked about Baroque and Romanesque architecture and he further said "Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God. It must therefore translate into meaningful terms that which is in itself ineffable." This structure only illustrates the world of the spirit if the subject is psychotic.

"The function of the church today is to bring people forward to meet God in a space where man’s spirit is rejuvenated. We must not forget that despite the fact that our current age has provided great and significant strides in the field of scientific knowledge and communications, man still today knows least about what matters most. The interior also incorporates a meditation chapel and baptistery both also conceived as top-lit inclined and convoluted cylinders," Prof. England said.

When an architect starts with an "it’s all about us" idea such as a place for men’s sprits to be rejuvenated vice a structure created to be a house of prayer and worship of God you end up with structures that do neither.

The subterranean chapel looking at Filfla is constructed by burrowing into the rock and producing a window which looks out over the waters focusing on the small island.

"From the seaside, the chapel assumes a different scale. Superimposed over the diminutive opening is an oversized cross, illuminated at night, scaled to relate to the magnitude of the towering overpowering cliff face. After sunset the two access towers housing lift and stairs to the chapel level are also lit up in order to appear from a distance as invitational beacon-candles framing the top edge of the vertical arm of the cross," Prof. England said.

In a poetic-religious vein, Prof. England explained the setting in his mind’s eye: "One sits on the rock-cut steps within this man-made cavern silently in prayer with a meditational eye looking out to the isle hovering between the womb of the earth and the navel of the sea, between the not yet and the no longer, as the wind dances on the silver surface of the ever-changing sea in a silent hymn of spiritual exhilaration.

"The site retains its hallowed sanctity as a mystical place of veneration in a transformation into what will hopefully become a contemporary Mediterranean altar of truce for this turbulent arena of violence… a sanctuary of peace tied to the sky, bound to the sea and chained to the earth, balanced between remembrance and desire," he mused.

Could any body have an idea what the internal structure looks like from that description? This guy would drive a police artist insane.

Now to be balanced and not overly negative I will try to come up with some positive aspects of the design. I don’t know if Malta is prone to earthquakes or not. If it is this is a good design since even if a earthquake hit you wouldn’t have to do any repair. How could anybody tell the difference? If you were Fred Flintstone wouldn’t you think this church is a fine edition for the city of Bedrock?

Doing some research on Prof. England I discovered that as a child when given a dexterity test involving blocks and pegs and various shape holes he spent most of the day trying the following.

In fact this proved to be a traumatic event and was instrumental in his obsession with children’s blocks.

You can see how the original mockup evolved into the first conceptual drawing.

TSO has a list of spiritual injuries that are quite funny.

1) Blood Sugar Fataltosis: This can occur as soon as two hours after beginning a fast, when the blood sugar falls so steeply as to induce paralysis and death.

2) Extraocular muscle tears: This can occur when the effort to gain custody of the eyes was too abrupt.

3) Lip & Tongue Lacerations: This happens when you bite your tongue or lips in an effort to avoid saying a mean-spirited remark.

4) Juvenile-induced insanity: This happens sometimes to parents of large families but contrary to the slogan "a mind is a terrible thing to waste" to lose one’s mind in the service of having children is a badge of honor.

5) Knee Fallaoffitis: Knees have been known to fall off due to overuse in prayer.

6) Levitation Sprains: After levitating, some saints are said to have had rough landings although we have little documented evidence of this particular injury.

7) PPS (Premature Pruning of Skin) Syndrome: This can occur with too frequent application of Holy Water.

8) Ave Carpal Tunnel: Those saying over fifteen decades of the rosary daily are at risk.

To which I must add my own:

1. Cranium Sprain: Occurs when straining to come up with a charitable explanations for someone’s actions when none are evident.
2. Sign of the cross repetitive motion injury. Evidenced by those who make the sign of the cross whenever somebody swears while working at a construction site or onboard a ship.
3. Tabernacle whiplash: Happens to some looking back and forth in a rapid action trying to spot the tabernacle in a church.
4. Rosary burn: Suffered by those who pray the Rosary so fast that the heat excitation caused by the rapidly moving beads against the skin cause a third-degree burn.
5. SOP Elbow: Caused by worshipers who attempt to shake the hands of everybody within 100 feet during the Sign of Peace.
6. Inclusive Language Twitch: A nervous condition experienced by readers at Mass who strain to convert male pronouns into inclusive language on the fly. Breakdowns after the realization that they forgot to add a "and sister" after saying brother are know to occur.
7. Scapular Back: Occurs when someone has placed so many religious medals to their scapular that their back begins to bend forward.
8. Synapses Snap: Experienced by those searching their minds to make a connection between the readings at Mass and the homily.
9. Eucharistic Adoration Numbing: Occurs when spending so long on yours knees in adoration that a numbed-out limb it may collapse under you resulting in a sprain or worse if you hit your head on a Prie-dieu. Especially devout sufferers also experience other injuries at they try to stifle cries of pain so as not to disturb others in adoration.
10. Saintly Head Laceration: Caused by levitating in a room with a ceiling fan.
11. Stigmata: Has been know to ruin the careers of hand models.
12. Bilocation Trauma: Accidentally bilocating to a busy freeway.
13. Cardiac Transverberation: See case study of St Teresa of Avila "I saw in his hands a long dart of gold, and at the end of the iron there seemed to me to be a little fire. This I thought he thrust through my heart several times, and that it reached my very entrails. As he withdrew it, I thought it brought them with it, and left me all burning with a great love of God. So great was the pain, that it made me give those moans; and so utter the sweetness that this sharpest of pains gave me, that there was no wanting it to stop, nor is there any contenting of the soul with less than God”
14. Kneeler Toe: Painful toe stubbing caused by those experienced in kneeler manipulation with their foot miss and hit a solid back part of a pew instead.
15. Missal Toe: Caused by dropping a large missal on your foot.
16. Vocal Cord Spasm: Caused by attempting to sing unsingable liturgical music that resides in nobody’s vocal range except possibly porpoises and whales.
17. Leoretardation: Disease that results in reduced mental capability where the sufferer thinks that liturgical dance is a good idea in bringing people closer to God in worship.

Jonah Goldberg quotes an old Buckley line.

If a liberal Catholic is dying, does he ask the priest to give him Moderate Unction?

I would also add that they would be more likely to call for Viacom instead of Viaticum, since Viacom owns CBS, Showtime, MTV, and a gay and lesbian themed network called Logo. Possibly they might want a ritual involving one of their old Tye-Dyed shirt also known as the sacrament of the dyeing.

Would a dying conservatives calling out for the old term of Viaticum or Extreme Unction be considered rite-wing?

You can always tell the undercover security agents disguised as cardinals by their sunglasses. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Another case of mitre hair. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

This new order of priests
takes poverty seriously by sharing a cowl. (AP Photo/Ludmila Mitrega)

The Holy Father is presented with massive papal lollipops. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

Poland is really POD. Even the manikins in shop windows are dressed as priests. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Pope Benedict fends off an umbrella attack with his papal staff. (Reuters/Max Rossi)

That they may be one. Pope Benedict and the President of the Polish Ecumenical Council Mons. Jeremiasz Anchimuk leave hand in hand at the end of the ecumenical meeting in the Lutheran church of Holy Trinity in Warsaw
(AP Photo/Ettore Ferrari, Pool)

(REUTERS/Max Rossi)

Pope Benedict XVI kneels during a prayer at St John’s Cathedral in Warsaw (REUTERS/Max Rossi)

Darn that pectoral cross always sets off alarms! (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

Nuns cheer for Pope Benedict XVI as the ‘papamobile’ passes by in the old town of Warsaw (REUTERS/Katarina Stoltz)

‘papamobile’ – I like it. Though the second nun in the picture doesn’t appear to have had her morning coffee.

Even Jesus waves to the Pope.(AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

"Totus Tuba" (REUTERS/Max Rossi)

On a serious note Br Lawrence posted an excellent reflection by Blessed Jacobus de Voragine on the Ascension.

James talks about transferring Holy Days of obligation, so I don’t have to

Pope Benedict doing his Goldfinger Oddjob imitation flicks off
his steel Zucchetto at a dissenting theologian heckling him.

I was going to post more on The Da Vinci Code nonsense, but I had a visit paid to me by Silas the albino monkey assassin who threatened me. I figured he was from Opus Dei since he carried a copy of the The Way with him and said he would whip me with his own devotional Flagellum. So Dan Brown must have gotten this little detail wrong. Opus Dei definitely has no monks in their organization albino or otherwise, but I have heard no disclaimers about albino monkey assassins.