Humor

Another one from Paul Nichols.

KaleJ at un-Muted Mumblings writes:

Saw on slashdot that the domain, Hell.com is for sale.

Now someone who buys Hell.com "has the opportunity to redefine what hell means, at least on the Internet," says Monte Cahn, Moniker chief executive.

Sorry, the catechists have already beat them to the punch on redefining hell. In geek speak, any "Faith Formation" document referring to Hell.com would come up with a 404 Error, Hell not found.

I guess this would be a real fire sale.

In my Naval career we repeatedly had training in putting out fires. After some disastrous fires at sea such as the one on the U.S.S. Forestall the Navy decided it was not a very good idea to limit training to a specific group and instead expanded fire fighting training to everyone. Besides learning to be competent on a hose team and using the various equipment in emergency situations we always had training on the fire triangle.

It is a good training model since it emphasizes that to stop a fire you just need to remove just one of the elements. Remove the fuel, reduce the heat, or remove the oxygen and the fire will stop. I always though that this was a good training aid and I started to think it could be an aid in other situations.

Many times on Catholic radio I have heard people ask questions about whether something is a mortal sin or not or what constitutes a mortal sin.

So the eternal fire triangle can be used to see the elements that lead to a mortal sin. By removing any element of the eternal fire triangle you can be guaranteed to not commit a mortal sin. Since mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law and causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the possibility of the eternal death of hell if one dies in this state it is a very good idea to teach and understand this correctly.

The Eternal Fire Triangle is proactive instead of reactive. By ensuring that these elements never come together in the first place you will not fall into mortal sin. If you need a good Powerpoint slide for CCD consider the Eternal Fire Triangle, though Powerpoint itself was surely inspired by one of the Devil’s minions.

One thing to remember that even when all the conditions are not met that there is still damage done and the consequences due to sin. Committing a grave sin even when you are invincibly ignorant does not let you off scott free from temporal punishments, just eternal ones.

Grave Matter. Obviously first and foremost is to be aware of what constitutes grave matter so that you may avoid it.

CCC 1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."[132] The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

Full Knowledge

CCC 1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge …. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law.

Complete Consent

CCC 1859 …It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart[133] do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

Grace and following the universal call to holiness are the true eternal fire extinguishers. Just avoiding mortal sin itself can get you to fall into the minimum daily allowance trap. Fear of the Lord is the beginning, but not the end of wisdom.

As the old joke goes "Only you can prevent eternal fires."

A British-born Divine Word missiologist has told the Asian Mission Congress that the Church in the world’s most populous continent needs to overcome its peripheral local adaptation to become a "mango Church" – yellow inside and outside.

Fr John Mansford Prior, who visited Australia last month, told the Asian Mission Congress in Chiang Mai, Thailand that the Church in Asia must become totally Asian to make Christ’s message meaningful for people in the continent, UCA News says.

British-born Fr Prior has worked in Indonesia since 1973 observes that the Church in Asia remains Western with only peripheral local adaptation.

Asia has either a "banana Church," yellow on the outside and white inside, or a "coconut Church," brown on the outside and white inside, Fr Prior said.

But what the Church in Asia needs instead is a "mango Church" that is yellow outside and inside, Fr Prior added.

Mango church? Well he is almost right, Christianity is based on the mangod.

The Holy Father certainly does love trying on new hats.

Though maybe he keeps trying to find a hat that Monsignor Georg Gänswein won’t swipe from him.

The Pope is always having to keep an eye out whenever Monsignor Georg Gänswein is around.

Who doesn’t seem to be satisfied in just swiping one.

God’s Music Bar? Well I bet they don’t have any Marty Haugen, David Haas, or St. Louis Jesuits playing there then. Surely they must have Seraphim on staff if it is his music bar. I wonder if any customers would complain about the song selection? "Don’t you know any other songs besides ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory?’ You keep singing it continually’"

It would be pretty cool to go out for a drink and and be able to say you are going over to God’s place. Plus God’s Music Bar would never run out of wine just as long as there is water around – ala Cana.

Actually the above picture is sadly of a former Catholic Cathedral in an area that used to be the French concession in early 1900s in Wuhan.

A resident is suing the Chicago suburb of Burbank, alleging that the city’s new vehicle sticker violates her constitutional rights.

The sticker bears the image of asoldier with a rifle, kneeling in front of a gravesite that bears a cross.

City officials say the cross is a generic symbol and wasn’t picked for any religious reasons.

But resident Nichole Schultz disagrees, according to her attorney, and she says the sticker has resulted in the "forced Christianization" of her car.

For the record I am against cars forcibly being converted to the faith. We never seem to ask our cars first before putting on a political bumper sticker or attaching a religious item to it. I bet many cars are embarrassed by the bumper stickers on them. Though I am sure my car is properly Catholic since it reverently approaches cross streets.

Our society though has become a society of victims where offense is looked for and taken repeatedly, so much for multiculturalism or respect for diversity. Instead of the example of a melting pot that was traditionally used we have become more like a centrifuge where every element is separated from each other.

I also think our court system should institute a laugh test. Every lawsuit should be read first before a panel and if anybody laughs when it is read out it is thrown out.

Paul Nichols who does some wonderful art along with caricatures sent me his latest cartoon.

I have wondered if possibly there might be some rivalry between St. Luke and St. John? For example at the time when St. Luke wrote the third Gospel it was really the longest and most detailed and contained information about Mary and especially the Annunciation that the first two Gospel writers did not include. And then St. John one-ups him and writes not only the longest Gospel, but includes details about Mary at Cana, and even mentions that she was given to St. John to take care of by Jesus. Certainly the reason why there are no more Gospels after St. Johns is how can you beat his prologue, Chapter 6, or his theological writing style.

St. Luke though decided to write a sequel to his Gospel, the Act of the Apostles and instead of following the actions of someone like St. John decides to concentrate on St. Paul instead.

Now you really have to wonder what St. Luke thinks of the Book of Revelations written by St. John? Especially when he came across "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth." Lukewarm? Why Lukewarm. Why not Judaswarm? Or perhaps Ananiaswarm or Sapphirawarm. Surely if St. Luke wasn’t in the beatific vision this would have been seen as another snub by St. John towards him.

You also have to think that St. Luke must have been pretty pleased when Star Wars came out. Finally Luke is not associated with vomiting and Luke is actually the hero. Saint Luke use the force and pray for us.