The Book of Covidicus, Chapter 9: the closing of the temples

Continued from Chapter 8.

1. It came to pass that the children of Bri-tain fell sick once more.

2. Indeed, the models of Neil, son of Fergus, had told him that every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and parrot would die in agony, some of them more than once, unless Bo-sis and his servant Matthew, of the tribe of Hanoch, locked them up and threw away the key.

The mystic runes of Neil foretell doom (maybe).

3. Then Bo-sis went up a high mountain and began to preach.

4. Blessed are the pure in hands: for they shall fear no plague.

5. Blessed are those who cover their faces: for they may buy food.

6. Blessed are those who give space to their neighbours: for all men shall know of their virtue.

7. Blessed are those who pray in secret, and do not worship in the temples of the Lord: for they shall not be hit on the head by my soldiers.

Bo-sis speaketh to the multitudes.

8. But the people cried out with a loud voice, saying "Why doth Bo-sis forbid us to worship in the temples of the Lord? Can he give us one reason why the plague killeth the just man, but not the sinful man in the House of the Common People?"

9. Lo, and even the High Priests spake out, led by him who was called Vincent Nicodemus, High Priest of the Minster of the West. Likewise, many members of the House of the Common People also asked Bo-sis to explain.

10. And Boris cried "Ha ha!" amoung the strumpets.

11. But he did not answer their questions.

Bo-sis speaketh comfortable words to the people.

12. And there were amongst the children of Bri-tain some very woeful people who wished to go to the far-off land of Dig-ni-tas, that is to say, the valley of the shadow of Death.

13. So Bo-sis blessed them saying, "Ye may go forth and die, but ye may not walk in the streets. For if ye do, ye shall surely die. Er, that is to say, er, cripes!"

14. Finally, Bo-sis told the people, "Many of ye may not work, but fear not, we shall pay you to idle, using the mighty treasures of Fur-lough, the magic tree of money."

15. So those who could not work rejoiced, saying "We must live in misery and poverty, but at least it is permanent."

Continued in Chapter 10.

Why I joined the Cult of Jim

"Phil", our guest Catholic, writes a special post for us.

I was very sad to read that one Felix Thompson had abandoned the cult of Jim, by which he means that he no longer regards Father James Martin SJ as the fount of all wisdom. Felix has thrown away his collection of "Jim" relics, including the rainbow socks, the autographed copy of "Mary Magdalene - the first Pope", and of course his reliquary containing hair and toenail clippings from the great man.

I can tell you what these secret signs mean, but then I'd have to kill you.

I, on the other hand, have moved in the opposite direction. I started off as an "ordinary" Catholic who just believes the obvious stuff that we get in church, then became successively a "cafeteria" Catholic, a "gelato" Catholic, a "Bologna Cathedral nosh-house" Catholic, and finally a "quite a lovely little New York bistro where they do Jesuit cupcakes" Catholic.

"No, we won't say grace!" Pope Francis and (?) Zinedine Zidane tuck in!

It was so refreshing to discover Fr Jim (as he lets me call him). Rigid Catholicism is hard to take seriously: what do you do if there is some obscure bit of doctrine you can't accept, like, for example, the sinfulness of adultery? Well, a rigid Catholic would probably leave the Church, but a modern Kasperite Catholic simply ignores such inconvenient teaching - and is probably rewarded by being made a cardinal, or at least a bishop!

Now, don't get me wrong. Although I'm a Jimmist, I'm not gay. I have tried to be, but I just couldn't summon up any interest. Fr Jim was very understanding, though. "I don't condemn you, just because you like girls," he said. ""Let me build a bridge towards you." What a hero! Of course I realise that being a "hetero" has made me an outcast in most circles, but Fr Jim is no bigot, and he is prepared to welcome me!

Fr Jim explained to me many things about Christianity that I had previously not understood. How Jesus originally didn't have a clue about why he was on Earth. How He met a wise Canaanite woman who taught Him everything He knew. Along with Mary Magdalene, the first Pope, she wrote the Sermon on the Mount for Him to preach.

"And now the person you've really come to hear - Mary Magdalene!"

I met the renowned novelist Dan Brown at one of the Cult of Jim meetings. "Pleased to meet you," he said. "Renowned balding 56-year-old Jesuit James Martin has been an inspiration for many of my novels that I wrote, as well as inspiring me when I was writing them. His theoretical theories on 2011-year-old superstar Mary Magdalene have provided the inspiring theories leading me to become a 53-year-old author who writes lots of books that sell well. And my renowned hero Robert Langdon is based on Jim's 47-year-old Italian-American-Australian-Martian friend Massimo Faggioli, who is a friend of the best-selling Jesuit priest." We all owe a lot to Fr Jim!

Another wonderful person that I met was the great comedian Stephen Colbert, who told me one of his trademark jokes about Donald Trump. "He's got funny hair, and shouts too much," he quipped, before explaining the details of some sexual torture that he wished to inflict on the President. What a brilliant sense of humour! Colbert is also a Catholic in the Cult of Jim, and in his latest sketch he calls Trump homophobic, rigid, literally Hitler, cancer, and (a new idea from Jim's friend Stephen Walford) Satanic! How we laughed.

Fr Jim introduced me to many top Catholics (although Fr Rosica headbutted me).

Hail Holy Jim Martin! He's the future of Catholicism, and Pope Francis thinks he's wonderful!

Don't forget to say your Rosica!

The Rosary is old hat! From now on Catholics are encouraged to say the Rosica, a new sequence of prayers involving meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosica interspersed with cries of "Where's my lawyer?" "I'll sue!" and "I DEMAND an apology!"

Did you or did you not describe Fr Rosica as a "silly old buzzard"?

Named after Fr Thomas Rosica, of the Sue and Litigate Salt and Delight media network, whose response to criticism on the Vox Cantoris blog was to run to his lawyers and threaten legal action, the Rosica draws on some little-known sayings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, including the following:

Matthew 5:11. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. For ye can get in touch with your lawyers, and SUE THE PANTS OFF THEM!

We've been sued by Fr Rosica!

Matthew 5:20. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of Fr Rosica, then ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.

"Be ye perfect, even as Fr Rosica is perfect." Matthew 5:48

Matthew 5:39. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Thus wilt thou be able to claim DOUBLE DAMAGES.

Pope Francis gives some boxing tips to Fr Rosica.

For more on the mysteries of the Blessed Rosica, we recommend the blog of Brother Lapin.

Fr X's blog

Fr X's blog - what does the priest really say?

Posted by Fr John Xylophone

I have been sent a pamphlet called The Great Sermon Handicap, apparently the memoirs of a British theologian called Bertram Wooster. In it I was horrified to detect a number of grave liturgical errors, signs of modernism, and other heresies. As usual, my highlighting in the extracts printed below is in bold and my comments are in red.

---

"There are about a dozen hamlets within a radius of six miles, and each hamlet has a church and each church has a parson [the correct term is "priest"] and each parson preaches a sermon [only one?] every Sunday. [No mention of holy days of obligation?] Tomorrow week – Sunday the twenty-third – we're running off the great Sermon Handicap. [They are in a state of mortal sin, discussing a priest's spiritual nourishment of his flock in these terms.] Steggles is making the book. Each parson is to be clocked by a reliable steward of the course, [are they unaware that "clocking" was forbidden by Pope Tempus III in 930?] and the one that preaches the longest sermon wins."

A priest dares to ahow himself in public without proper vestments.

"Why, it’s a sitter for old Heppenstall," I said. [Show respect! The correct term is "Father Heppenstall," or perhaps "Fr H" if he has his own blog.] "He’s got the event sewed up in a parcel. There isn’t a parson [!!] in the land who could give him eight minutes. Your pal Steggles must be an ass, giving him a handicap like that. Why, in the days when I was with him, old Heppenstall [see above] never used to preach under half an hour, and there was one sermon of his on Brotherly Love [I trust that he preached in Latin. However, this is a very dubious subject for a homily] which lasted forty-five minutes if it lasted a second. Has he lost his vim [Latin for "power." We'll let this pass] lately, or what is it?"

The Sermon on the Mount. Vim habet Jesus.

"Why," said Claude, "the first Sunday we were here, we all went to Twingchurch, [a parish unknown to me. Doubtless heretical] and old Heppenstall preached a sermon that was well under twenty minutes. [As agreed at the Synod of Basingstoke (the 1362 rite), all sermons should last exactly ten minutes.] This is what happened. Steggles didn’t notice it, and the Rev. [an insulting term for one of the Church's ordained priests] didn’t notice it himself, but Eustace and I both spotted that he had dropped a chunk of at least half a dozen pages out of his sermon-case as he was walking up to the pulpit. [As mere laymen, they were right not to interrupt the service by drawing attention to the missing pages.]

He sort of flickered [flickered? Such activities are generally regarded as liturgical abuses] when he got to the gap in the manuscript, but carried on all right, and Steggles went away with the impression that twenty minutes or a bit under was his usual form. The next Sunday we heard Tucker and Starkie, [priests unknown to me, so probably dangerous liberals] and they both went well over the thirty-five minutes, so Steggles arranged the handicapping as you see on the card." [At this point I gave up the book in disgust, and drafted a letter to the Pope demanding that this work of blasphemy be banned by the Vatican.]

Another blow against secularism.

P.S. Please "like" me on Facebook. If I get another 500 "likes" they will make me a Monsignor!

Love de neihgbor

Ullo dere Bosco, well de trail of Jessus's missin millions seems to have gone cold, but maybe we will come back to it later. Bosco he took a big dose of Fruitcakol before goin to bed last nihgt, and he kissed his cement statue of St Goliath dat I made (it was sposed to be St Peter but I got de scale wrong and it came out 10 feet tall). As a result he had a grate nihgt's sleep, and only woke up three times screemin dat he wornt saved.

We went to de Bibble class, and was introduced to Sister Judy of de Holy Smoke convent, dis was part of de Cathlic instruxion, apparently dey doesnt beet up nuns like we does in de Calumny Chappel, dey even welcoms dem. We gave Bosco some more Fruitcakol meddicin, and dere werent many probblems.

Today's Bible text was "Love de neihgbor as yousself". Dats very controvershal, as our neihgbors keeps comin round at 4 a.m. to say "Shut up Bosco we is tryin to sleep" and we retalliates by superglooin dere grabage bins so dat dey cant use dem. Probbably "Love de neihgbor" is an error in de Cathlic Bibble dey translats it funny sometimes. We is gonna studdy de Sermen on de Mount soon. I looked up de word mount, it means a horse, is we reely gonna have Jessus gallopin round de church, Bosco?

Here's a photo we took of Bosco at his Bibble classes, dat's Father X. Pell de Mons and Sister Judy of de Holy Smoke convent, prayin togevver for de sole of my big bruvver Bosco (dat's him behind if you didnt know).