Humor

Lying naked in a manger in a Northern Hemisphere winter meant baby Jesus would have certainly suffered from hypothermia, say Australian researchers.

They analysed how Jesus appeared in nativity paintings, compared with what the temperature would have been on 25 December, publishing their research in this week’s Medical Journal of Australia.

Neonatologist Dr Tieh-Hee Koh from Townsville Hospital in Northern Queensland and his co-researcher Marion Koh, wife and mother, wrote:

"As we are experienced in looking after sick newborn babies, we have been impressed every year by the fact that, in depictions of the nativity scene on Christmas cards we receive, the newborn Jesus is almost always naked."

They said they were concerned as the temperature in Bethlehem was probably 7°C on 25 December, yet keeping babies warm was a basic principle of looking after newborn babies.

Their review of 20 paintings by Old Masters at London’s National Gallery showed Jesus was naked or only scantily clothed in 90% of them.

The baby Jesus looked large for a newborn in 55% of the paintings, but premature in 10%.

He had a halo in 40% of paintings and was placed on the floor in 60% of paintings.

So, they concluded Jesus was probably hypothermic at birth, and very much so if also premature.

"[One explanation] more symbolic than pragmatic, is that he was born into this world without any earthly possessions," the authors wrote.

"In a similar vein, to the unscientifically inclined the halo and the pedigree of Jesus’ birth might suggest a neutral thermal zone, making the ambient temperature irrelevant." [Source]

Usually we get some really dumb articles at this time of year, but this paper in a medical journal is beyond parody. Maybe next year they will analyze icons and Byzantine art and come to the conclusions that the majority of saints had strange birth defects because of their distorted physical proportions.

Don’t forget to pick up your St. John of the Cross Night Light for all of your Dark Night of the Hallway needs.

A seminarian reader sent me along this link to a very funny video clip by his fellow seminarian Jeff Geerling:

Howard Dean Talking Christmas Tree

Christmas services at a New Mexico church will include use of a hallucinogenic tea for the first time in years under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued Friday.

The justices lifted a temporary stay the government had won last week, allowing the Santa Fe church, Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, to use hoasca tea.

"They’re delighted," Albuquerque attorney Nancy Hollander, who represents the church, said. "They’re so thrilled that they can celebrate Christmas for the first time since 1998."

"We cherish our freedom of religion in this country and these people had been denied that," Hollander said.
The Bush administration contends the hoasca tea used by the church is illegal and dangerous.

Hollander said the sacrament is central to the religion.

"One wouldn’t say a Catholic had fully celebrated their religion if they weren’t allowed to receive communion," she said.

Sacramental hallucinogenic tea? I guess not only would they have a high priest, but also a high congregation. Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) translation from the Portuguese means "union of the plants." Now Jesus did use many example of farming and planting but these example were to lead to union with him and not plants. I think the guests at the wedding of Cana would not exactly have been thrilled to have the water turned to tea. The Gospel would really have sounded strange to hear:

"Neither is new tea put into old tea bags; if it is, the bags burst, and the tea is spilled, and the tea bags are destroyed; but new tea is put into fresh tea bags, and so both are preserved."

I could also imagine all the problems if God had ordained tea as one of the elements for communion. You could definitely burn your fingers if you used intinction. Of course the tea pot whistling could replace ringing bells at the consecration. And what would you do with the left over tea leaves. Would the priest one of the EEMs have to swallow them? The thought of a tea ball in a monstrance is not exactly inspiring. I also wonder if they would sing the Tea Deum afterwards to the Holy Trini-Tea?

You wonder if there was a moment when someone shouted "Divine inspiration!" as the production staff sat around in the scrubbed little studios of Salt+Light Television watching the playback of the pilot segment of Cooking with Saints.

The set: a kitchen — with stained-glass windows.

The culinary celebrant: Roberto Martella of Toronto’s Grano restaurant — a made-for-television natural, effusively lecturing on the risks posed by globalization to traditional food while preparing tagliatelle Frassati with Piemontese mushroom sauce from a recipe divined by the Blessed Giorgio Frassati himself.

The homilist and creator of the show (and just about everything else on Salt+Light): station CEO Father Thomas Rosica, whose vocation in the priesthood denied God knows how many other professions of a luminary (what he could have done with mutual funds can only be imagined), patting the corners of his mouth with a starched white napkin before reading from the Blessed Frassati’s writings.

Toronto-based Salt+Light went national this week, bouncing brassily into the digital universe as the reincarnation of the Inner Peace Television Network.

Think of the Roman Catholic Church with nose-studs, and you more or less get the programming rhythm: pop music, news, documentaries, talk shows, meditations, moral and theological instruction, films with a religious message and saint-food. All with a beat. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. All Catholic. [Source]

Maybe after Cooking with the saints they can do some biography’s called "Cooking the saints." St. Lawrence who was tied to a grill over a slow fire to be roasted famously said "turn me over." Don’t tell me the church doesn’t have a sense of humor since St. Lawrence is also the patron saint of cooks.

SEATTLE – Hoping to keep more Internet users in its branded universe, Microsoft Corp. has become the latest company to offer blogging to the masses.

MSN Spaces makes it easy to set up Web journals without needing highly technical skills. It is targeted at home users who want to share vacation pictures, text journals or a list of favorite songs.

It is free to anyone with a Hotmail e-mail or MSN Messenger account, both of which also are free. MSN Spaces will be supported by banner ads. [Source]

I decided to preview the features and see if I could recommend it to current or potential bloggers. It truly was easy to set up and has some really good features for selecting a template and quickly modifying it to your individual desires. Some wizards help you to maintain a blogroll and it also has built in comment moderation to prevent spam. I imported a selection of my posts into it and you can see my effort here.

CHICAGO — On the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving, a group of carpenters and tradesmen donated their time and energies to construct a one-of-a-kind display honoring the birth of Jesus Christ in downtown Chicago.

It’s "one-of-a-kind" because all others in the world famous Daley Center Plaza annual holiday display fail to mention whose birthday Christmas celebrates.

Every year, the "God Squad," a group of volunteer tradesmen, erect one of the world’s largest nativity scenes around Thanksgiving and take it down on the last day of December.

The God Squad, headed and financed by retired businessman and Catholic activist Jim Finnegan of Barrington and business owner and founder of the Walsh Forum radio program Dick Walsh, have had to make a few changes in their project’s construction.

Several years ago, someone stole the Christ Child out of the creche’s manger, launching a citywide search. The next day, following an anonymous tip, the baby was found in a Greyhound bus station locker.

Now the Christ Child is securely chained to the manger and instead of angels protecting the baby, Chicago Police stand guard. [Source] [Via Matt C. Abbott]

Chained in a manger,
Attached to his bed,
The little Lord Jesus,
Anchored there instead

The links prevent some guy,
Remove Jesus where he lay
The Little Lord Jesus,
Fastened securely today

They rattle and jangle,
Chains surely wont break,
And Little Lord Jesus,
Some Scrooge
will not take

I chain thee, Lord Jesus
Security apply,
And stay by my side,
A bolt through your thigh

Be near me, Lord Jesus,
I ask thee to stay
Alarm system manger,
Tripwire in the hay

The extra loud siren,
Screams through the night air
The Little Lord Jesus,
Electrified – so beware!

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A group of Midwestern bishops is concluding a visit to Vatican City, where Pope John Paul the Second told them he’s worried about the declining number of U-S priests.

He told a group of visiting American bishops on Friday that the challenge can’t be ignored.

The pope is calling for a national day of prayer for priestly vocations, as well as new ways to recruit priests.

I have seen the normal responses by self-identified progressive Catholics that the solution is of course women priests and married clergy. They never seem to remember that the Church had up to the 1960 not had a vocation crisis and did not require the change of a discipline for celebrate clergy or abandoning a constant teaching of the Church as regards a male priesthood. It is rather funny to watch many diocese with a progressive bent continue to lose vocation while those identified as throwbacks who are stodgy, old fashioned and and un-yielding to modern culture such as Bishop Bruskewitz and Bishop Chaput not only have burgeoning vocations but have had to build new seminaries. The foibles of the modern Catholics who do everything to make the church more relevant and accessible to everyone while at the same time have declining Mass attendance and religions vocations would be funny if it wasn’t so destructive.

I think they should make a comedy about this.

In the movie "American Vocations" Chevy Chase plays Bishop Griswold a bumbling bishop that just can’t do anything right. We watch as he reads and implements the latest suggestions from the National Catholic Reporter and America magazine. He strives to build the perfect American parish accessible to everyone and finds that it is really accessible with no one going to Mass.

We watch the laughs as he:

• Introduces Self-centering prayer – perfect for self centered lay people.
• Leads bible study by introducing the neon black highlighter. Scriptural passages that are difficult to follow or contrary to your conscience can be highlighted in black.
• Adds species inclusive language – no more of the man and women or brother and sister terminology that excludes others of God’s species from actively participating in the Mass and feeling left out with human specific phrasing.
• The book "I’m OK, your OK" is carried in procession to the altar.
• Develops the automated confessional that is voice actuated and gives the absolution message "I affirm you" when the affirmed stops speaking.
• Not only is first communion always before first confession, but since children 12 and under could not possibly commit a sin – height indicators such as those used in amusement parks are placed in front of the confessionals.
• New catechetical texts are introduced into the parish RCIA program such as the "I love you where your at – Jesus Coloring Book."
• Rap and Heavy Metal Masses are celebrated where the proper response is Yo! or Dude! The choir director is replaced by a DJ.
• To emphasize that the Mass is a communal meal a drive-thru window is added next to the altar so that communicants can receive the Precious Body and Blood of Christ and even to have fries with that.
• Liturgical texts now include the Gospel of Thomas and The Da Vinci Code.
• Classes on Vatican II are taught weekly. Classes are free since no actual Vatican II documents are required by the students.
• Pro-abortion politicians are given head-of-the-line privileges at Communion
• Religious sister’s habits are standardized with a uniform and consistently ugly brown pant suit
• The diocese becomes welcoming and open minded to include everybody (except orthodox Catholics.)
• Parish churches are built with only one very narrow and real long pew. This ensure both that nobody can attempt kneeling and that everybody must get into the communion line.
• Spirituality includes the enneagram, raki, and just about anything taught by someone just as long as their name is not prefixed by Saint and especially Doctor of the Church

The laughs build as the introduction of every new idea results in the exact opposite intent and the frustration builds for poor Bishop Griswold who just doesn’t understand why his enlightened approach will not work.

I also think that Bishop Gumbleton would be the perfect advisor for this movie – just tell him that it is a biography and not a comedy.

Coming soon to a parish near you!

Image during constructon via roadsidearmerica.com

When motorists on I-75 see the 62-foot statue of Jesus alongside the highway, many have the same reaction, News 5’s Emily Longnecker reports.

"It just makes you, it’s like ‘Wow,’ " said Stephanie Nevels of Fairfield.

Tiffany Williams has been hearing about the statue since it was put up outside Solid Rock Church.

"It kind of took my breath away. I was just like, ‘Oh my goodness,’ " Williams said. "I had no idea it would be that big."

The giant messiah is gaining giant attention from newspapers and magazines across the country. One travel website calls it "Super Savior."

Church officials say the styrofoam and fiberglass Jesus is the largest one in America. And people are flocking to see it, says Mike Trent, who works at the BP gas station down the street. [Source]

My impression of this statue is "quick throw me a rope! I am drowning in quickgrass." I also think it is pretty ironic that "Solid Rock" church would build a hollow Jesus statue out of styrofoam and fiberglass. Though, after all the abstract Jesus statues – in comparison – this one is not too bad.

Fr. Jeffrey Keyes of The New Gasparian had remembered a post I had done previously about a a group called the Artotyritae
who thought that the sacramental elements consisted of bread and cheese and thought the following essay might be a good follow up.
With the recent e-bay auction of the Virgin Mary Cheese Sandwich the parody essay "The Holy Toast of Florida Biblical and Liturgical Roots" is pretty funny.