Something for Catholics to celebrate

These are hard times for Christians who want something to celebrate, as Archdruid Eileen has pointed out. Our fellow-Christians in Mosul are being persecuted by Islamic thugs - although this can't be a very serious massacre or else Messrs Obama, Cameron, Hollande and Merkel would have said something about it, and Clegg the wonder dog would have barked. Not all that far away, the people of Israel and Gaza are getting on rather badly, as even the politicians have noticed. Then if you're a Christian in the West you will be assailed by the forces of darkness in various ways: abortion, euthanasia, "gay pride" parades, ... and you are increasingly likely to be persecuted if you stand up against them. Not a lot of laughs so far.

The story so far.

However, for Catholics, it is a time of celebration! 500 years since the Reformation (or it will be in 2017). Indeed, the Lutherans have invited us all to celebrate this, and why not? 500 years since the Catholic church got rid of some of its most boring members! Douglas Adams would have put the Lutherans in the B-ark along with the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers, and this is the religious equivalent. As the Mikado has it:

All prosy dull society sinners
Who chatter and bleat and bore
Are sent to hear sermons 
From mystical Germans 
Who preach from ten to four.

Fortunately, Catholics are more likely to get a five-minute homily (say, the same length as the Beatitudes) rather than a six-hour German sermon with all the verbs packed into the last half-hour - even if it may be an anecdote about a power cut in the deacon's shed rather than a piece of solid theology.

Luther: never wrote one thesis when he could write 95.

Of course, the Reformation had more consequences than simply putting some of the most boring Germans into their own little box. Lots of people (both Catholic and Protestant) were martyred, enduring what the Bishop of Lancaster might call "a voluntary period of being burnt to death". Shall we celebrate that, too? Oddly, we don't do that to each other any more, we leave it to the Muslims to do it for us.

If you lose your luggage, say a prayer to someone. Anyone will do.

It's unlikely that ISIS will invite us to a multi-faith celebration in honour of the "cleansing" of Mosul, but if you do get an invitation, do accept! It is always blessed to be ecumenical, and it doesn't matter what you believe provided that you believe something! Not that I would wish to offend our non-believing brothers and sisters either, of course.

Jubilate Deo!