Humor

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.

Kale at un-Muted Mumblings wrote me saying he was inspired by my St. Michael the Archangel E-prayer and came up with some possibilities about the Michael server. His post is definitely inspired and contains some great laugh-out-loud puns.

It also reminded me of one of my previous posts and what Operating System the Michael server must use.

I mentioned some time back about a Tennessee man who created a Rosary out of bowling balls.
Well here is another one in Michigan.

NAPOLEON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — When a man forges a 70-foot, 700-pound rosary out of bowling balls in his front yard, you just know there’s a story behind it.

This one involves Ralph Kluk, 76 — a Poland native, pack rat, polka player and pen pal of the late Pope John Paul II.

Kluk is a character. He also is known to ride about town with one. If you spy a guy tooling around in a black Chevy 1500 pickup with a 3-foot tall Scooby Doo plush toy strapped into the passenger’s seat, chances are you’ve just seen Kluk.

"I do crazy things," the Jackson County grandfather admits, with a twinkle in his eye. "But they’re not really crazy."

Turns out, there’s actually a simple mathematical formula to building a bowling-ball rosary.

Take 59 balls, 20 cans of pastel spray paint, 40 feet of black piping, add a wooden cross and voila! You have a unique interpretation of Roman Catholic catechism that Kluk calls "The Final Strike."

Anchoring the balls in the ground with 9-inch metal stakes was key, he says. They almost rolled off his 30 acres and onto Horton Road.

And another one in Illinois.

NOKOMIS – Hail Mary, full of grace ? and if you sinners out there try to pray this particular rosary, you are going to need a back brace.

Not that fingering the 59 beads is the point here, of course. The rosary that retired quarry worker Bernard "Chub" Clark has created in his rural three acre yard near Nokomis is made of old bowling balls and probably weighs close to 1,000 pounds, give or take.

Behind the rosary is a cautionary sign, stark black letters against a white backdrop: "You know not the hour Jesus will come – please pray." Clark hopes the message rather than the rosary will weigh heavily on the conscience of rubber-necking motorists passing by on Hillside Avenue. Clark believes mankind has strayed further and further into the gutter and our Father, who art displeased in heaven, is getting ready to bowl us over for our wickedness.

Well the one advantage is that if you happen to drop this Rosary when you yell Jesus! it won’t be too out of place.

WARSAW, Poland –Poland’s central bank on Monday issued 2 million collectors’ bank notes bearing the image of the late Pope John Paul II, marking the 28th anniversary of the late pontiff’s election.

John Paul, born Karol Wojtyla in the Polish town of Wadowice, is revered in his homeland, where he helped to inspire the pro-democracy Solidarity movement in the 1980s.

The National Bank of Poland’s special notes have a face value of $16, and sell for $29.

The front of the bills feature an image of John Paul II holding his crucifix-topped staff against a background of the world map.

On the back, John Paul is depicted kissing the hand of a Polish cardinal. The design includes a quote from the late pontiff: "There would not be a Polish pope at the Holy See if not for your faith, not backing down when faced with prison and suffering, your heroic hope."

Vuong Anh Toan, 39, who has lived in Poland since moving from Vietnam 10 years ago, bought three bills for his wife and son.

"I’m not a Catholic, my wife is, but I loved the pope," he said.

I am torn between this being really cool or an opportunist money making gimmick to take advantage of the late Pope’s popularity . And in this case they are literally making money to make money.

The attack on the Vatican website by Jihackists was unsuccessful. Kevin Knight posts:

Michael is the name of the firewall, or security computer, at the Vatican website. (They also have servers named Gabriel and Raphael. I think I detect a theme here.) According to a report from Catholic World News, it’s been busy lately:

Islamic computer hackers tried to disrupt the Vatican web site earlier this week, but failed, according to a report in the ANSA news service.

In an online forum for militant Muslims, a group announced plans for an assault on the Vatican computer network, which was said to be a form of retribution for Pope Benedict’s criticism of Islam in his Regensburg speech. Police later confirmed that there had been a concerted effort by hackers to penetrate the Vatican site, but computer-security experts were able to detect and repel the attack.

Vatican security personnel are remaining vigilant in case of another effort by the hackers.

On second thought, maybe the vanquisher was St. Michael the Archangel after all.

There is a legend that the Sister running the Vatican website collapsed after Mass one day. When she revive, she related a vision of Satan through his minions attacking the servers hosting the Vatican website. Following the vision she wrote this prayer.

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us against Denial of Service attacks.
Be our protection against the bots and packets of black hats.
May thy firewall rebuke them, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Hosting Provider-
by the Divine Power of God –
cast into digital hell, distributed attacks and all buffer overflows,
whose packets roam throughout the network seeking the downing of sites.

Today with the canonization of Saint Theodore Guerin so we now have a new American saint, though she was born in Brittany, France. There are in fact only two American born saints St. Katherine Drexel
and
Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Which means there are still no American born male saints. Face it guys we are being slaughtered in the American born saint category. I mean tow to zero is a wipe out. Is there a stained glass ceiling preventing American born males from being canonized here? Do we need an Equal Saints Amendment or affirmative action for American born male saints?

Sure I know we have some waiting in the wings such as Venerables Terence Cardinal Cooke, Fr. Michael McGivney, and Fr. Solanus Casey. None of the four male Blesseds was born in the United States so this is more proof of American born male discrimination. Sure they will let you be a Venerable just to tease us, but when it comes time to the big leagues we aren’t considered good enough.

Let’s not take this lying down, instead let us take it on our knees. Come on and get to interceding now. Pick a Venerable of your choice and start praying for his cause. Learn about him and ask for his intercession. For my part I select Venerable Solanus Casey who was the first American born male venerable. Since I was first introduced to his story I have found him fascinating. Father Groeschel was one of his altar boys and relates a story of coming into the church late one night to find Fr. Casey playing his violin in front of the Blessed Sacrament. There is also the cause for Bishop Fulton J. Sheen which was opened in 2002 and he is now a Servant of God.

Now don’t get me wrong I am not a misogynist when it comes to women saints or prejudiced against immigrant saints and of course this is written tongue-firmly-in-cheek. Just let us slide in one American born male saint.

Pope Benedict XVI narrowly avoids a planned water balloon attack.

Via Dwight Longenecker, Catholic or Protestant Heaven.

I remember seeing this episode when it came out last year and this was just one of the funnier bits.

Drew at Shrine of the Holy Whapping points to a Protestant site on Orthodox Catholic Idolatry. Drew describes it as “a fascinating collection of really cool photographs juxtaposed with barely-relevant Scriptural quotations.” The photo essay starts with “Roman Catholicism is of the Devil!” Examples of captions are “Little girl being forced to kiss an icon.” Though I couldn’t find the coercive device used to force this piety, it must be Orthodox mind control.

The dumbest example that Drew points out is a picture of Veronica holding the veil with Christ’s image that they confuse with Mary with the caption “Come on my son, kiss the Queen of Heaven! Ye worship ye know not what…” -John 4:22″ The irony is that they mock what thee know not. The saddest example is a picture of a women kissing a crucifix with the caption “People are worshipping Satan and Don’t Even Realize it.”

All I know is I would never buy a dictionary from the people who created this site. “Some of those icons are of mystics (meaning Satan-possessed)…”

Archbishop regrets Catholic Church ‘confessional competition’ in Eastern Europe, Russia

When I saw the above headline I imagined something quite different than the actual story. The story is about the intensified activity of some Western missionaries in Russia and the conflict over the Russian Orthodox Church over this.

I had a whole different idea of what a confessional competition could be. We are by nature largely competitive and having a real confessional competition could be fun. One competition could be where multiple families compete against each other. They set a fix starting point and stop at multiple churches where at each stop one member of the family goes to confession at that Church. Then they drive to the next church and repeat. Of course there is a time limit and it is the time confession is available at most churches on Saturday from around 5 to 5:30 pm. Now that would be a race!

Family members could compete for least number of Hail Mary’s assigned as penances. Though you have to find a parish where the same penance isn’t assigned for pretty much anything.

Parishes could compete for which ones have the longest lines for confessions. This though could be inconvenient for some people who have a limited time so maybe they can also offer a confessional line for 10 venial sins or less.

It would be pretty hard though to have competitions for most contrite, best examination of conscience, or most improvement since the last confession. You would have to have a priest like Padre Pio or St. John Vianney and they wouldn’t be allowed to say who won anyway.