MELBOURNE: 26 January
2013
-- We
can celebrate with prayer (Novena for 31st January), with an
extra
prawn on the barbie down the beach (almost anywhere along
Australia's
cosatline), a grand parade in New Delhi ... but below we
celebrate with
something a little different and quirky. Just for laughs. An
Australian
Salesian, now passed to his eternal reward (Fr Alan
McDonald, died
2011) spent some time at the Pisana where, amongst other
things, he was
the Vice Rector for a time. He enjoyed collecting
interesting sayings,
quips, observations, be they of people at the Pisana, or
Aussie
politicians - or whoever! He passed a collection of these on
several
years before he died. Enjoy!
On Sunday preaching
"Is the child disturbing the preacher? or the preacher, the
child?"
On Past Pupils:
"At the Pisana we meet the cream of the past pupils; at home
we work with the skimmed milk."
Did Fr Viganò actually
say this?
"Don Bosco was a saint despite being Piedmontese! If he were a
meridionale, would we still have the motto, Work &
Temperance?"
Vatican City Employees 1736 A friend of mine in Rome
found the
following interesting rules for employees in Vatican City.
They are
dated 1736 and would hardly satisfy today's trade union
requirements, I
imagine. ACMcD
1. Office employees must sweep the floors
every morning, dust the furniture, the book shelves and the
windows.
2. They must daily replenish the lamps with
oil, brush the hats, trim the wicks, and once a week wash the
windows.
3. Each employee must see that there is a
pail of water and a bucket of coal for the day's requirements.
4. Quills must be carefully looked after;
each employee may cut the writing point according to his own
preference.
5. This office opens at 7 am and closes at
8 pm, excepting Sundays,
when it is closed all day. It is expected that every employee
spend the
Sunday attending to church matters and generously helping out
with
religious affairs.
6. Men employees will have a free evening
each week for leisure;
this will be increased to two evenings if they attend church
regularly.
7. After an employee has worked thirteen
hours in the office, he
must spend the remaining time reading the bible or other good
books.
8. Each employee must set aside a sizeable
sum from his wages for
the needs of his old age in order not to become a burden on
society.
9. Every employee who smokes Spanish
cigars, drinks liquor in any
form, frequents billiard saloons or public halls, or goes to
barber
shops to be shaved, will give his employers cause to suspect
his
worthiness, his intentions, his integrity and his honesty.
10. The employee who faithfully carries out
his duties and avoids
making blunders for five years will be given a pay rise of 5
centesimi
per day provided the profits of the department profits are
sufficient.
How a famous Australian
Politician
(Sir Robert Menzies, better known as 'Bob Menzies' or just
'Ming')
handled hecklers. We'll call him RM here - not to be
confused with the
other RM we all know! Woman heckler: 'I
wouldn't vote for you even if you were the Archangel Gabriel!'
RM: 'Madam, if I were
the Archangel Gabriel, you would scarcely be in my
constituency.'
Heckler: 'Go ahead,
Ming, tell them all you know; it won't take
long'. RM: 'I'll do better
than that. I'll tell them all that we both know; and it won't
take any longer.'
Plump woman heckler:
'Come on Bob, tell us about inflation and round it off!' RM: 'Stand up and
let's have a look at you - At a glance I wouldn't think you
needed to be told anything about inflation.'
Heckler: 'Wotcha
gunna do about `ousing?' RM: 'Put an aitch in
front of it.'
Heckler (a burly boorish
man) on hearing Menzies crack a joke he has heard before:
'And now tell us the story of the three bears.' RM: 'Certainly I'll
tell you the story of the three bears, but I can't see the
other two.'
Alan also rejoiced in
language and its
quirks. He put together this range of collective nouns (the
asterisked
ones will only make sense to Aussies) A paddling of ducks / a team of ducks / a string of
ducks / a
Badelynge of ducks / a flock of ducks / a Donald of ducks / a
sorde of
mallards / a flushe of mallards / a murder of crows / a siege
of herons
/ a charm of finches / a parliament of owls / a watch of
nightingales /
a muster of peacocks / an exaltation of larks / a flight of
doves / a
mye of pheasants / a building of rooks / a gaggle of geese / a
skein of
geese / a desert of lapwings / a murmuration of starlings / a
convocation of clergy / a simplicity of subalterns / a rave of
fans / a
gathering of clans / a board of directors / an anthology of
'pros' / a
leap of leopards / a pride of lions / a scoop of journalists /
a
grimace of joggers / a yawn of council workers / a worry of
cyclists /
a keyboard of letter-writers / a lurk of lawyers / a Keating
of galahs*
/ a weeping of Hawk(e)s* / a Carmen of lyrebirds* / a
grumbling of
graziers / a prejudice of judges / a flush of WCs (War
correspondents)
/ a tantrum of tennis players / a desperation of property
developers /
He didn't claim to be a poet,
though
he could be one. But maybe he found this somewhere, after
sitting
through interminable meetings:
Oh, give me some pity: I'm on a committee,
Which means that from morning till night
We attend and amend and contest and defend
Without a conclusion in sight.
We confer and concur; we defer and demur;
And reiterate all of our thoughts.
We revise the agenda with frequent addenda,
And consider a load of reports.
We compose and propose, we suppose and oppose;
And through points of procedure we run!
But though various notions are brought up as motions,
There's terribly little gets done.
We resolve and absolve but we never dissolve,
Since it's out of the question for us.
What a shattering pity to end our committee.
Where could we make such a fuss?
And finally -
one for the Missions Department, Project Europe, whatever
... In view of the mess the
world is in,
the good Lord recently sent the Apostle Paul from heaven,
and told him
to do something to remedy the situation. He told Paul to
start with the
missionary countries. Paul duly wrote to the superior of a
missionary
society for admittance as a candidate, and received the
following reply.
Dear Paul,
Thank you for your letter recently
received, in which you seek
admittance into our society with a view to doing missionary
work.
Our policy is to be totally sincere
and frank with all our
candidates; and so, after an exhaustive study of your
activities we
append the following remarks.
To be perfectly honest with you, we
are amazed that you ever
seriously considered a vocation as a missionary. We have been
informed
that you suffer from a serious problem with your eyesight;
this would
certainly constitute an obstacle and an insuperable handicap
for an
efficacious ministry. Our council always requires 20-20 vision
in all
candidates.
There is general disgust at your
obvious lack of conciliatory
behaviour. Anyone with an ounce of diplomacy would not have to
be
dragged outside the city to be stoned; nor attacked by an
angry mob.
Have you ever given thought to the fact that if you spoke more
kindly
you might gain a few friends? I enclose a book by the American
Dale
Carnegie on How to make
friends with the Jews and influence the Greeks.
Unfortunately your preaching has been a scandal to the Jews
and insanity for the Greeks.
Is it really true that you have
spent time in jail? We have been
informed that you were incarcerated for two years in Caesarea,
and that
you have also been arrested in Rome! There have been further
accusations that you have caused no end of problems to the
shopkeepers
of Ephesus, who refer to you as one 'who has turned the world
upside
down'. Our missionary work has absolutely no place for such
sensationalism. We have also been further distressed to read
of the
revolting episode at Damascus, when you had to be hoisted over
the city
wall in a basket.
Your ministry has been too erratic to have any
worthwhile success:
you have flitted about too much - to Asia Minor, then to
Macedonia,
then to Greece, and finally to Italy; and now you have a mind
to engage
in a foolish and useless journey to Spain.
It is more important to concentrate
your energies rather than
meander about from pillar to post. You cannot conquer the
world by
yourself. You are only one person, just a puny Paul, a nobody.
In a recent sermon you made the
following remark: Far be it from
me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We
think that
you might also glory in our extensive property, the agenda we
undersign, our combined bank balance, and many other things.
Furthermore, who do you think you
are, going about telling the
people that you will impart to them some special sort of
spiritual
blessing! Surely these people have been sufficiently
instructed to look
after themselves!
Doctor Luke describes you as of
small stature, quite bald,
frequently ill, and always so restless and anxious for your
small basic
communities that you do not sleep well at night.
He also mentions that you are so
jittery and restless at home
that you spend much of the night in prayer. We on the other
hand insist
that our candidates have a 'healthy mind in a healthy body'.
Finally you have written to Timothy
that you have fought the good
fight. We consider that fighting is not a good recommendation
for a
missionary. The best combat is to be found in a non-combatant.
Christ
did not carry a sword: he preached peace. You even boast of
having
battled with the beasts at Ephesus! What on earth do you mean
by such
an affirmation?
My dear brother Paul, I am sorry to
have to tell you this: in all
my twenty-five years of experience I have never encountered
anyone who
has proved to be such an utter negation of all the
requirements of our
missionary society. To accept you would be an infringement on
all the
rules and regulations of modern missionary practice.
With every good wish,
Monsignor Ego Ipse Solus,
Doctor of Missiology, Theology, Philosophy,
Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology;
Director of the Missionary Society of
Facile and Convenient Faith.
