Humor

Unam Santum reports on a school being reopened not under the direction of the diocese by a group of progressive nuns. he also notes this statement taken from Reconciling With the Land: A Lenten Reflection on the IHM website:

Recently, the members of the Earth Charter Committee decided to place a representative symbol of this community in their prayer corners. It is amazing how the presence of a giraffe, a turtle or a frog next to a candle or icon helps bring a deeper consciousness to our prayer. God is in us and in all. If we are polluting or wasting water, if we help destroy needed habitats by our demands for particular products, if we carelessly dispose of recyclable materials, our relationship to the earth community needs healing.

Well I guess that is appropriate. The giraffe symbolizes their sticking their necks out concerning heterodox theology. The turtle represents their true progress, even though they think they are going somewhere fast their actually crawling slowly along in not even the right direction. In fact it reminds me of an old children’s story – The Tortoise and the Hare-sy. Now as for the frog it is rather easy to associate the frog with this old folk warning of which I have heard used many times by Catholics.

If you throw a frog in boiling water he will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pan of cold water and raise the temperature ever so slowly, the gradual warming will make the frog doze happily . . . in fact, the frog will eventually cook to death, without ever waking up.

Now it certainly makes for a nice illustrative example, but unfortunately it suffers from not being scientifically true. A frog will indeed jump out of the water if the temperature starts to gradually rise. So I will go with another comparison for what the frog means in their prayer corners. You often hear that frog tastes just like chicken. Just as their school will seem to be Catholic without actually being Catholic. Just as frog meat is a poor substitute for chicken, especially when chicken is more easily available, so will their school be a poor substitute for a true Catholic education.

"our relationship to the earth community needs healing."

Maybe they can setup earth reconciliation rooms. Inside the rooms can be some animals, flowers, and dirt. They can choose to enter the reconciliation room face-to-earth or behind a screen. "Forgive me earth community for I have sinned. I have used a product without recycling.", "Say three Our Gaias and say an act of recycling."

The Catholic blog humorsphere keeps growing and one of the best new additions since the laugh-out-loud catholicnews.org is Musum Pontificalis a blog styled as if written by the Holy Father. The blog is written I believe by Rick Lugari of Unam Sanctum so I am not suprised by how funny this parody blog is.

The latest post on relativism and programming languages is also pretty funny and especially appealed to me.

If a computer programmer attempts to apply a Relativist philosophy to his craft, he will fail. A Relativist can try all he wants to force the computer to accept his irrational commands, but it simply won’t work. There is a specific code that the computer is designed to operate by, and that code means something.

Likewise, God, as the Supreme Programmer has written a code for us, it is a moral code (Morals++?), and it means something, and try as we might, we just won’t function properly, or be what we were intended to be without following the proper code.

Which makes me ponder that perhaps a daily examination of conscience is like a moral debugger. A debugger in coding is usually used to step through your code so that you can find where an error is and then to take corrective acton. Same thing with an examination of conscience. Going through the day and and finding those snippets of moral code that were not quite right or contrary to our basic operating instructions ("Love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves"). When we find these moral code errors during an examination of conscience we can then apply corrective action through the will and through prayer.

When testing out a program occasionally the program will throw an exception with the type of error and line it occurred on. Unfortunately our consciences are not quite so specific or maybe that is fortunate indeed. If we ignore those errors just like in programming it will eventually cause a crash. Repentance is the equivalent of rebooting, though if you run the same program in the exact same way without fixing it – it will crash again. It is amazing how much we do that in our lives hoping that the consequences of ours sins were just a glitch or a bug and not the necessary outcome of our actions.

Now if only I could write moral code snippets for my own life.

do while (true)
{
        ++holiness;
}

Well at least that’s what came to my mind when I saw this photo at Quodlibeta.

Coming home I was driving behind a truck that on it’s back window was advertising Christian Karate. It also had various Bible verses written on the back also so that ruled out Christian simply being a last name. It got me wondering about what would be Christian Karate? Would it include a "turn the other cheek while delivering a round house kick" move? Would there be various levels of Bible belts from white to black awarded based on scriptural and martial knowledge? Maybe breaking concrete slabs with a picture of Satan on them with you bare hands formed together in the prayer posture. Training could involve carrying a really heavy cross daily to build up endurance.

Well I should have known it. Before speculating I could have Googled and found the Christian Karate Association

The Christian Karate Association stresses the importance of having a close relationship with God. During class, students will be required to read and memorize Bible verses along with learning different Christian Character Qualities. These will be required for passing each belt test. Some of the Character Qualities include: Endurance, Patience, Loyalty, Self-Control and Boldness.

I thinks I will get involved with a new and probably profitable career path. I think I will become a Ten Commandments Feng Shui expert. Now you might ask what the heck is that and what would be the need for one? Well the Supreme Court basically said that each government sponsored Ten Commandments exhibit demands scrutiny to determine whether it goes too far in amounting to a governmental promotion of religion. That each display should be resolved on a case by case-by-case basis. Looking over the decision how this is to be done is more of an art than a science. It depends on both location and and being contexualized with other documents. In the Kentucky case the display was revised to include nine framed documents which included the KJ version of the commandments in a display labeled "The Foundations of American Law and Government Display." and this also did not meet approval.

So how do states determine if their displays are constitutional especially since it doesn’t depend on the Constitution or the First Amendment? That is where Ten Commandments Feng Shui enters in. I would look for a harmonious display that reflects the balance of nature in the displays depending on the amount of wood, fire, earth, metal and water used in their compositions. I will check for Constitutional Yin and Yang and if I find the necessary are elements present and that they have the proper flow I would then give them a certificate of blessing. The great thing about this scam – I mean job – is that no one can argue with your Ten Commandments Feng Shui interpretation using the text of the courts decision. I mean good luck figuring that one out and determining any real guidelines.

There is a Black Hat Sect school of Feng Shui and I will be starting the Black Robe school of Ten Commandments Feng Shui. The great thing about calling it Ten Commandments Feng Shui is that it will keep the ACLU off my back. As long as it sounds new agey and not Christian in any way they won’t bother me. So state governments give me a call and I will come and apply the art of Ten Commandments Feng Shui and make any necessary recommendations so that they meet with the optimum flow of Constitutional qi.

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 23, 2005–True Religion Apparel Inc. (OTCBB: TRLG) today announced that the Company has shut down a clothing retailer in the Northeast for selling counterfeit True Religion Brand Jeans. This investigation stems from the Company’s aggressive stance on the selling of counterfeit or diverted True Religion Apparel, Inc. products. The Company has enlisted the help of investigators, local police and lawyers to shut down and prosecute clothing retailers, jobbers, street vendors, importers, and online vendors that sell counterfeit True Religion Apparel, Inc. products in the U.S. and abroad.
[Source]

I wonder if counterfeit True Religion clothes would be considered heretical clothes? Though in this case heretical clothes instead of being tortured by putting them on the rack will be taken off the rack.

A priest who used the power of prayer to hook a king-sized walleye last winter is now selling the fish that made him famous.

Rev. Mariusz Zajac is hoping to receive $200,000 to $500,000 for the catch, which became an ice-fishing world record and resulted in international media attention.

"It’s not an easy decision to make. But I feel I have a duty," said Zajac, who was born in Poland and is priest at the Canadian Martyrs Roman Catholic Church in Carrot River, south of Tobin Lake.

"I could keep it for myself in my cabin to look at or use it for the good of others. I have already looked at it for the past six months, so . . . "

The walleye weighed 18 pounds and was 361/2 inches in length. The world record walleye for open water was caught in 1982 in Arkansas, weighing 22 pounds, 11 ounces.

Zajac, 43, was on the verge of packing up his rod and reel after a futile evening of fishing in January. He decided to recite the Canticle of Mary, a prayer of gratitude, and jig at the same time. Within minutes, he was squeezing a 22-inch wide fish through a 10-inch hole in the ice. [Source]

Normally people reach for their toolbox to fix a leaky kitchen faucet, but the leadership team at St. Patrick Parish in Lawrence is encouraging parishioners to reach for the toolbox to build their faith.

Members of the team present a large red plastic toolbox to each household that registers with the parish. On the outside of the box are stickers that say “St. Patrick Parish Catholic Toolbox” in three languages — English, Spanish and Vietnamese — and inside are religious items including a Bible, Catechism of the Catholic Church, a wooden crucifix with a stand and candle, rosaries for every household member, and a children’s Bible for families. Materials for different prayers are also included. All the materials are in the language appropriate for the parishioner.
Parishioners who register or re-register at St. Patrick Parish in Lawrence receive a “Catholic toolbox” including items such as a Bible, a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and a rosary for every member of their family. Photo courtesy St. Patrick Parish

Parishioners are also encouraged to keep other items like their family Bible, confirmation class items or baptismal candle in the toolbox.

“In our spiritual lives God really does give us basic tools to build our faith homes, to fix up our faith homes, and expand our faith homes,” said pastor Father Paul B. O’Brien, adding that the parish wanted to make these items available in the home of every parishioner. [Source]

This is actually a pretty good idea as a very basic Catholic toolbox. I would like the Tim Allen supersized Snap-On version. A giant red toolbox with room for a small library (think ancient library of Alexandria) or at least a laptop with a library of texts stored on DVD media. A built in kneeler would also be cool and some specialty shadow-boxed drawers for my Bible, Catechism, Liturgy of the Hours, and GIRM. Another drawer to hold various color highlighters for passage highlighting and of course a Holy Water dispenser. Now I would want some real tools also for those emergency Rosary repairs and gluing back on broken parts from various statues of Saints my pets have knocked over.

Clayton at The Weight of Glory has developed "Lord of the Thing."

A reader sent me a link to the following article.

JENNERSTOWN, Pa. — Twenty-five men of the cloth will be vying for a different fabric tomorrow: a checkered flag.

Jennerstown Speedway is holding its first-ever "Faster Pastor" auto race, a novelty featuring area clergy as drivers.

"We expected that five or so members of the clergy would be willing to take part," racetrack general manager Larry Mattingly said. "We ended up having to cut off the number of interested pastors at 25."

In fact, so many clergy members signed up for the race that they’ll have to share cars.

"That shouldn’t be a problem with this group," Mattingly said.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. I wonder if there might be different theological driving styles. Some might believe in salvation by race alone. That all is race. They of course would not have a pit stop. The goal of most preaching is to avoid the pit.