austraLasia
1472
Zen and the art of
Holy Whapping
NOTRE DAME: 2nd March 2006
-- Please, don't put this one aside - read on, if Lent allows a
little laughter and if your sense of Salesian communication tells you that
underneath it all there's both education and
evangelisation!
I was looking for something about Lenten
penances when I found a list of the top ten mediaeval penances that intrigued me
enough to find out the source. And I was pleasantly surprised.
Behind the fun there's some excellent material, information, formation,
animation..... that I have no doubt can be useful to a creative Salesian.
But first the top ten mediaeval penances:
10.standing
barefoot in the snow for hours
9. skunk hair shirts
8.
scrubbing castle walls with a toothbrush
7. memorising the Summa
theologica
6. chewing tinfoil
5. delivering papal condemnations to Martin
Luther
4. hand copying the entire bible
3. wasp licking
2. anything
involving anthills
1. the 'thorn paddle'.
But
then I found a photo of cardinal-elect Zen and a range of comments on his
'snappy dress sense'! Our Chinese confreres will enjoy the comments, none
of which are irreverent, some of which are most informative as they enter a
scholarly discussion on his coat of arms and the correct or otherwise influence
of elements from St., John Bosco's story.
So where on earth would such a zany
collection of material come from? As one correspondent to the site (the
URL of which I will reveal in a moment) said: "In der katholischen Weblog-Szene
hat sich blitzschnell", or another, in a language rather more will understand,
"Youth with brains, there is hope!". Yet another says "should be part of every
Christian's daily reading and meditation". I agree, it joins my list of
things to put a moment aside for each day. Never smutty (I think) always
clever and, yes, intelligently so. It's an academic blog run by the
students at Notre Dame University (the Indiana one) and you'll find it at
http://holywhapping.blogspot.com I really do have to recommend this
one. JBF
PS. Today's quiz on South African capital cities has been
won by a correspondent from China Province, with second prize to Cambodia, both
of whom probably had rapid access to Wikipedia. The next one will be much
more difficult and won't allow for cheatsheets. First prize was 'The
Unpublished Don Bosco', second prize - I'm seeing what I've got
left!
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