If Confirmation Class was Boot Camp.

ATTEN-HUT!

GOOD MORNING MAGGOTS!

I am Sergeant Mercurius O'Brien, and for the next few months, I am going to prepare you for confirmation.

Dooo-ooo YOU know what that is son? Confirmation, huh? I CAN'T HEAAAR YOU. That's right son, it's a sacrament. Anyone want to give a guest what a sacrament is? Nope? Not one? What are they teaching you in your catechism classes?

Right, now listen up. Confirmation is a sac-ra-ment. It is outward sign of inward grace, and in this particular sacrament, you, yes you baby face, you are going to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. Does anyone know why? No one?

*aside* Oh good Saints in heaven, we have plenty of work on our hands.

YOU are the CHURCH MILITANT. You are being prepared for SPIRITUAL WAR. Yes, son, SPI-RI-TUAL WAR. Didn't your teachers tell you that in class? That ongoing right now is a great war between them angels up above, and those devils down below? A war between heaven and earth for the our very souls?!

Yes, that's right Jones, a war. for. your. soul.

Now listen up, from this moment forward, YOU, are going to forget every single nambly-pambly thing that you have been told by your catechism teachers. This is a war, and when you die. YES, you will die eventually, but don't worry, Our Lord, Jesus Christ has already conquered death, you won't have to be afraid. But, when you die, there will be four last things that happen to you. You will. 1) die. 2) be Judged, 3) go to heaven, or 4) go to hell. Have I made myself clear? Good.

What's that, Verrelli? Your teacher doesn't believe in hell? She said you God will take everyone to heaven? WRONG. What's that? Speak up Verrelli! It isn't in the bible? Have you read it? Well you better get started. Now drop and give me three decades! YOU CALL THAT A DECADE? Why, my grandmother, God bless her soul, could say a decade better than you. God bless her soul, could say a decade better than you. Why, she was a saint, she could pray better than the entire camp put together!  Forty hours of exposition, she was there, all forty hours. On her knees. That's right her knees. On your feet, dirtbag.

Right, listen up maggots, you will, I repeat, you will go to hell if you live a life in a state of sin and a life contrary to the teachings of Holy Mother Church. If you support unnatural forms of marriage, or like to kill unborn children or not go for frequent confession. Do you have a problem with that son? Yes, you! The one in the tight pink shirt with the rainbow on it? Judgemental? Why.... clearly you haven't read the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Lemme give you some advice son. You have one and only one soul, and there is only one way to heaven, God's way. Better decide what you want, His way, or the highway.

I've never seen a more sorry bunch of fools in my life. Well, don't worry, we will teach you. Yes, we will teach you everything that you need to know to fight the good fight. We will arm you against the devil. We will teach you how to fast, and to do penance and mortify yourself. Here, you will learn to grab the cross when you are in trouble. You will learn to assist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You will learn the teachings of Holy Mother Church as she kept them for two thousand years. You are here so we can turn you into a saint. IS THAT CLEAR?

Alright, I think you have too much energy. Let's go for a tour around camp. By tour, I mean run. After that you will turn in and polish your shoes for Mass.

Let's go, let's go, let's go. MOVE IT!

I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE BEEN TOLD,

THE CATH'LIC CHURCH IS BRAVE AND BOLD....

The Gender Inclusive Pronoun.

For those of you who do not know, in many languages, including English, when the gender of a particle subject (person) in a sentence is not known, it is the rule of grammar to use the gender inclusive pronoun, 'he'. This is not due to some strange patriarchal oppression of women, as any rabid feminist will immediately cry out, it is merely a law of grammar from a language that was influenced largely by Christianity, a religion that brought women to equal status in society. There is a similar concept in Chinese and Latin as well. (Hence prayers in Mass open with, 'fratres' or 'brothers'.)

Anyway, it irks me when people try to skirt around the laws of grammar to appease some flailing political machinery. So, here's Dr Petter Kreeft on the subject, from a footnote in his book, Socratic Logic:

The use of the traditional inclusive generic pronoun 'he' is a decision of language, not of gender justice. There are only six alternatives. 1) We could use the grammatically misleading and numerically incorrect 'they'. But when we say 'one baby was healthier than the others because they didn't drink milk,' we do not know whether the antecedent of 'they' is 'one' or 'others', so we don't know whether to give or take away the milk. Such language codes could become dangerous to baby's health. 2) Another alternative is the politically intrusive 'in-your-face' generic, 'she,' which I would probably use if I were an angry, politically intrusive, in-your-face woman, but I am not any of those things. 3) Changing the  'he' to 'he or she' refutes itself in such a comically clumsy and ugly revisions as the following: 'What does it profit a man or woman if he or she gains the whole world but loses his or her soul? Or what shall a man or woman give in exchange for his or her soul?' The answer is: he or she will give up his or her linguistic sanity. 4) We could also be both intrusive and clumsy by saying 'she or he'. 5) Or we could use the neuter 'it', which is both dehumanizing and inaccurate. 6) Or we could combine all the linguistic garbage together and use 'she or he or it,' which, abbreviated would, sound like 'sh...it.'

Gotta love Dr Kreeft.

Titivillus, the Patron Demon of Scribes

I found this on the preces latinae website. The patron demon of scribes. A must read for the writer/blogger.

Titivillus is often referred to with the somewhat fanciful title of "The Patron Demon of Scribes". For much of human history the mechanical printing press did not exist, so any copies of a book or document had to be made by hand. Such copying was always done by professional scribes who were oftentimes monks in the Scriptorium of their monasteries (a tradition we can thank Cassiodorus for, not to mention for the preservation of texts and learning during the "Dark Ages"). Except for the shortest of documents, the work was generally laborious. The text had to be carefully drawn and faithful to the original document. Consider the labor required to copy an entire Bible or Missal, for example! I, for one, would not want to copy all of my Latin prayers by hand, much less an entire Bible. 

As with even the best of us, minds can wander from time to time and the monks were no exception. When this happened, errors would be introduced into the text. No one likes to take credit for his own mistakes, and true to human nature the monks invented Titivillus. He was invented somewhat in jest by them, both to take the blame for their mistakes and as a warning to the hapless monk whose mind strayed from the task. Titivillus is first mentioned by name in the Tractatus de Penitentia, written around 1285 by John of Wales, and then again in the 14th century by Petrus de Palude, the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Titivillus, so the story goes, would wander the earth every day collecting scribal errors until he had collected enough to fill his sack a thousand times. As he completed his collections for the day, the sack would be taken to the devil and each mistake was duly entered in a book against the name of the monk who had made the error. Upon Judgement Day, each of errors would be read out loud and would be held against the monk who had made it.

Keeping in mind what awaited for the careless scribe come Judgement Day, Titivillus helped the monastic community keep its standards up and its errors down. By 1460, the monks were doing such a good job that poor Titivillus was said to be reduced to slinking about churches and recording the names of women who gossiped during Mass. Hardly the sort of thing a once proud demon would want to stoop to, but times were tough.

However, that situation did not last. With the advent of the Renaissance, the rise of Universities and the merchant class, there was a sudden demand for manuscripts.... 

Read the rest there.