True story: About three years ago, I stepped away from work to buy Christmas stamps at the nearby post office. When the receptionist saw me return a few minutes later with no stamps, I explained that they didn’t have the Madonna and Child stamps that I wanted. The young lady — an early twenty something — got a puzzled look on her face and said, “Wow…I didn’t know they made a stamp with Madonna and her new adopted baby.”

What are they teaching our young people in schools these days?

It’s hard to escape Southern Culture, even when attending an otherwise-formal Anglican Church wedding reception (see photo). I don’t think this is standard-issue from Canterbury, for some reason.

Just found some good Catholic humor online: Theology 911 Final Exam. My favorite question:

St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo decide to rob a bank. The note to the teller is 1,200 pages long, not counting footnotes, complete with a promise of damnation if the teller does not accept immediate Baptism. In the middle of the heist, they engage in an extended debate as to whether or not the money really exists. Are they committing a mortal or a venial sin?

Some have recently asked if the University of Notre Dame is having an identity crisis. But this is nothing new. After all, here we have a college that shares a name with a French cathedral, uses an Irish leprechaun as a mascot, and has a dude named Raghib Ismail among its noteworthy former athletes. Sounds like they’ve had an identity crisis for quite a few years.

This is one of those questions I never thought to ask. But apparently it was a big enough issue in the late 19th Century to address in the 1873 Boston Catechism (p 64)…no joke:

Q: Should we abstain from spitting after having received communion?
A: Yes; we should endeavor to refrain from it for the space of a quarter of an hour, out of respect for the sacrament.

Everybody got that? No spitting for 15 minutes after communion.

Strange what comes up in a Google Image search sometimes. I searched for “catholic photos” and this gem shows up on page one:

Yes, it’s The Hulk as a Catholic priest. As if walking into a confessional wasn’t intimidating enough!

Anyway, I had to follow the link to see where this came from. Turns out there is an article explaining that this Marvel Comics character is a (seemingly lapsed) Catholic. In the infamous words of Stan Lee…’Nuff said! Or perhaps more appropriately…Excelsior!

File this one in the “That’s Just Plain Wrong” category: votive candles featuring Obama as a saint.

Just who were the “Magi” that visited the Christ child? After years of pondering, I wanted to share two interesting, yet widely unknown, facts about these men.

It is often said that the magi were “wise men”, but did you know what their occupations were? Well let me tell you, the stories say, “they came from afar,” and since we know that “a far” here in the South refers to a fire, then clearly the magi were professional firemen.

And how did they get to Bethlehem? Artists have typically depicted them riding camels, but actually they drove a Honda. You see, the tales say, “they came in one Accord.” This also provides additional proof that they were from the Orient.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! :-)

I just saw an ad for this on another Catholic blog: www.thepopescologne.com

So…if I wear this, will women find it attractive? Or will it make them stay away and therefore create a celibacy-ensuring aura? You know, kind of like the opposite of TAG body spray?