Humor

Mary J. Blige says she has found religion, but she makes no apologies for her earthly materialism. In fact, she says God has willed her to wear bling.

“My God is a God who wants me to have things,” the singer tells May’s Blender magazine. “He wants me to bling. He wants me to be the hottest thing on the block. I don’t know what kind of God the rest of y’all are serving, but the God I serve says, ‘Mary, you need to be the hottest thing this year, and I’m gonna make sure you’re doing that’.”

Blige also is not modest when it comes to her place in history. “I do consider myself part of black history,” she told the mag. “Since 1991, I’m still doing this and I’m successful. And I haven’t hurt anyone in the process.”

And Jesus said to her "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But when she heard this she became sad, for she had much bling.

Jumping Without a Chute reminds is that even with Easter behind us we should be celebrating the Octave. Just as too often the celebration of Christmas seems to end at midnight on Christmas day we also give the octave a short shrift. Remember it is still Eastertide.

New and improved Testament! More effective than the blood of Bulls and Goats!

As a devout Catholic and art lover, Greg Dougherty was outraged when he heard someone had set “Morning Spirits,” the sculpture of a cardinal situated on 4J Road, on fire at 1:30 a.m. April 10. The statue is part of the city’s Avenues of Art.

“It was appalling, especially happening on the evening of Palm Sunday,” he said.

The more Dougherty thought about it, the angrier he got. So he decided to buy the cardinal and bring it back permanently to Gillette.

“I thought it was a good way to get back at the Pontius Pilots of Gillette,” Dougherty said.

He informed the Mayor’s Arts Council of his intent to buy the $22,000 statue on Friday. Of that, 25 percent will go back to the group.

It was a good end to a week that had rocked members of the arts council when they learned of the vandalism to the statue.

Dougherty, a member of St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, already has spoken to church officials about putting the cardinal permanently on church property. He hopes vandals will stay away from it and the incident was a one-time deal, he said.

Karl Sigurbjörnsson, the bishop over Iceland, said in his Easter sermon that religion is full of humor and the Easter is a joke of God. According to mbl.is, he said that God was laughing at the hesitation of a church that would rather glorify Good Friday than Easter.

The bishop said that in ancient times, the “Easter laugh” was a well-known concept. On the morning of Easter Sunday the churches were filled with jokes and laughter over the most incredible of all, that the crucified Jesus had come back from his death, and life had prevailed over death. “Yes God fooled the devil, felled him using his own trick. This is the most laughable of everything laughable, the most incredible of all unbelievable things, the most joyous of all pleasant things,” preached the bishop.

Well as a joke it is quite practical and much better than the one Satan pulled on Eve.

Gerald suggests a mascot for the movement to liberate the Tridentine Mass.

I like his choice and I think his choice will also be supported by all more traditionally minded bears.

Though I think some more progressively minded bears will hardly bear the thought.

Now with all this talk about the Universal Indult possibly being released on Holy Thursday I have mixed emotions.

It would be better released on Easter since I would feel funny celebrating at Universal Studios on Holy Thursday and especially Good Friday. Now as a residence of Florida I already get a discount so added with the Universal Indult or concession I wonder how much of a discount I will get now?

Here is my post from last year.

Of course Palm Sunday leads to:

The BBC has a real nice slideshow of Palm Sunday services, though one caught my eye.

The San Lorenzo church in Cordoba, Spain, was the scene of one of hundreds of processions
in the country that will be held during the Easter Holy Week.

I am not exactly surprised that that this tradition didn’t catch on here in the U.S.

Gail Petersen carries songs around in her head. A self-taught musician who does not read music, she records her song ideas on tape before writing lyrics and arranging the music with her band mates in The Catholic Girls.

"Songs come to me as a kind of mini-movie," she said. "I see it with a beginning, middle and end and they have a little story to them. A lot of them are about girl meets boy or boy doesn’t appreciate girl and has a bad time, and then the girl is able to move on and the boy likes her after that. That comes up in a few songs."

The New Jersey band will perform at the CD release party for its new full-length recording, "Meet the Catholic Girls," at the Stanhope House on April 8. The closing band is Shabby Road, a New Jersey band that performs covers of The Beatles. Steve Berger will play bass with The Catholic Girls.

"We wanted to do a variety of all the things we like to do," Petersen said. "We have our typical ’80s new wave pounding kind of song. Then we have our punk. We have a ballad and we have a song with a Static influence with a beat. We even have a country-flavored song and a heavy metal song, too."

This is a mainly punk group around since the eighties whose tag line on their site is "from the Vatican … to your garage." They all went to Catholic schools and wear Catholic school girl outfits with an occasional Rosary, thought it is hard to tell if there faith is more than a gimmick. I do wonder what Rite they would belong to or more likely they are Ramones Catholics. In fact I have a suggestion for a song they can do about Eastern Catholic babies getting prepared for their big day.

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be Chrismated
Nothin’ to do and no where to go-o-oh I wanna be Chrismated
Just get me to the Church preparing for His reign
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can’t control my fingers I can’t control my brain
Oh goo goo goo goo goo
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go….
Just put me in a stroller and put me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can’t control my fingers I can’t control my brain
Oh goo goo goo goo goo
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be Chrismated
Nothin’ to do and no where to go-o-o I wanna be Chrismated
Just put me in a baby chair get me myron
Hurry hurry hurry before I gotta run
I can’t control my fingers I can’t control my toes
Oh goo goo goo goo goo
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go…
Just put me in a baby chair…
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated

I do wonder if The Catholic Girls might collaborate on their new album with the Pope of Punk BXVI himself.

Some people don’t realize this, but the Pope has other influences besides Mozart. One of them is the Celibate Pistols and their classic song "God save the Holy Queen."

No the National Catholic Reporter hasn’t finally changed their name. This time it is a National Geographic Special just in time for Easter on a Gnostic gospel. Jimmy Akin has the low-down. I remember a couple of years back that the National Geographic did an extensive article on JRR Tokien and his influences in writing the Lord of the Rings which forgot to mention the fact that he was Catholic and that he considered it foundational to his books.

Detectives with the Tyler Police Department are investigating the weekend burglary of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on South Broadway.

Don Martin, the department’s public information officer, said police were called to the church Saturday when officials learned two key items from the sanctuary had been stolen.

Martin said the theft of the Bishop’s chair and a crucifix was an estimated loss of about $3,000. Martin also added there had been no reported church burglaries in Tyler in the past several months.

An all points bulletin said to be on the lookout for a progressive or schismatic Catholic desiring to make their own ex cathedra statements. Other suspects include liturgists who are known for removing crucifixes.