We wish you a miserable Christmas

This year, Catholics, Anglicans and atheists have a single message for us. Pope Francis, no less, has told us that, this year, Christmas is a charade. Father Giles Fraser of the BBC is dreaming of a Blue Christmas. Finally, there's Kevin McKenna of the Guardian with a rant, Away with the manger! It's a holiday, not a holy day.

Down with this sort of thing (even the outsize king)!

That's that, then. No carol-singing, please; no wishing people - even Christians - a Happy Christmas; I think it may be OK to say "Season's Greetings", since that can be said at any time, and doesn't actually mean anything. "Happy Holidays" is also out, but the sort of people who say that are miserable humourless Guardian-reading types anyway.

So how should we "celebrate" Christmas? Will sitting in a dark cupboard for three days satisfy our distinguished commentators? Or should we go out into the streets and cry "Woe, woe, and thrice woe!"?

"Woe, woe, and thrice woe!"

We've already had many happy festivals recently, what with Hallowe'en, Guy Fawkes Night, Thanksgiving, Black Friday (your mileage may vary here), so it seems a bit excessive to rejoice just because God sent his Son to the Earth to redeem mankind - hey! most of us didn't even need redeeming, as my spiritual director, Fr Phil of St Daryl the Apostate's Church, is at pains to point out.

Many will say that the usual way to celebrate Christmas - eating and drinking until you feel ill, sending cards to people you hate, buying people presents they don't want, watching rubbish on the television, etc. - is quite enough to make most of us miserable, and that this is what God (or at least the Pope) wants. So how can we stamp out the other, more joyful, aspects of Christmas - those that somehow associate it with Christ?

Private Eye is apparently unaware of The Return of the J.C. (H/T Gareth Hurley)

As Fr Phil put it in last year's Midnight Mass sermon to a congregation of three (one old lady with her hearing-aid turned off, a sleeping man who had walked in by mistake after the pub closed, and myself), "My text today is from an old English carol, We all like figgy pudding. (We shall be singing this later as our offertory hymn, in an arrangement by Paul Inwood.) Some of you may be feeling guilty at this point - perhaps you don't like figgy pudding? It is important to realise that these words, like 'We believe in God', are purely a liturgical cliché. Following the Spirit of Vatican II, we realise that they do not commit us to anything. God loves us all - in a metaphorical sense - even those who have chosen a jam roly-poly pudding lifestyle."

Purely symbolic - like angels, shepherds, God, etc.

Well, Fr Phil's sermons are usually too deep for me, but I think that - as usual - he is liberating us from the more traditional aspects of Christian worship, such as Christmas. That leaves us free to be as miserable as we wish. Enjoy!

The laws of Christianity

With the news that the Vatican is to have its own cricket team, it is clear that some readers would appreciate a handy cut-out-and-throw-away guide to the game of Christianity.

The laws of cricket, however, are well known.

1. In the game of Christianity, there are two teams, called the saints and the sinners.

2. The team of sinners is much larger than the team of saints, and beginners will usually start there. This is called original sin.

Howzat? An original sinner.

3. The object of the game is for the sinners to become saints. The saints will help this, but other sinners will try and prevent this.

4. Declaring one's innings closed is considered bad form, although not against the laws of the game. Causing someone else's innings to end is more serious, and the party responsible loses the game.

5. At various stages in the game a "tempter" will run up and attempt to get past a player's guard. Points are scored for batting away such attacks.

6. The player who is batting has a variety of scoring shots available, all with technical names such as praying, fasting, alms-giving, etc.

7. A cry of "Alleluia!" or "'Owzat?" will greet the end of an innings.

8. There is a Trinity of umpires. Two of these are out on the field, but one is pavilioned in splendour and girded with praise. Their decision is final.

The pavilion at Lourdes cricket ground.

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Meanwhile, as the Vatican decides whether to recognise the controversial events at Medjugorje as apparitions of the Virgin Mary, it has been asked to adjudicate on another controversial event.

Probably NOT Mary.

According to a part-time mystic, Brother Eccles, he was on holiday in the village of Muddlejorge, when he awoke from a doze to see an old lady in the room with him, smelling of gin. She screamed "WOEFUL!" at him, hit him over the head with a bottle, and then herself fell to the floor and started snoring. Eccles blacked out for a while, and when he regained consciousness, the lady had vanished.

A Vatican spokesman said: "As in the case of Medjugorje, this is totally unlike the apparitions of the Virgin Mary that we have so far accepted - Lourdes, Fatima, Walsingham, etc. - in both the appearance and the message of the alleged apparition. However, 'Woeful!' is probably a good rendering of Mary's views of the current state of the world, so perhaps it was a genuine apparition after all. Who knows?"

Eccles's Auntie Moly was unavailable for comment.

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Finally, the Vatican has withdrawn a papal medal where the name "JESUS" was misspelt as "LESUS".

I blame the Lesuits.

In fact, this is not the first time that J and L have been confused in religious circles. In the first century, in an attempt to appease the Romans, St John wrote "God is Jove". However, this was transcribed as "God is Love", and we have had to live with the consequences ever since.