c. 2005 The Joyful Noiseletter
(UNDATED) “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
_ Ginger, age 7
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Uses for fruitcakes
_ Use as a cornerstone for a new church or synagogue under construction.
_ Use instead of sandbags during flood.
_ Use as railroad ties.
_ Use as speed bumps to foil neighborhood speeders.
_ Use as bowling pins.
X X X
“I was one of the first group of women ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. I was hired by the male reactor to serve as curate at St. Margaret’s Church in the Bronx, N.Y.
“After my first Christmas Eve service, one of the acolytes came to me and said, `Mother Mills, we’re no longer a single-parent parish.”’
_ Rev. Susan Mills, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Dayton, Ohio.
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A bishop went to an unfamiliar church to celebrate the Eucharist. There was a microphone on the altar, and being uncertain whether it was switched on, he tapped it gently with no result. So leaning very close to it, he said in a loud whisper which echoed around the church: “There is something wrong with this microphone.”
The well-trained and responsive congregation, very familiar with the latest in liturgical language, replied at once, “And also with you.”
_ Bulletin of the Parish of Coley, Halifax, England.
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“A good sermon should have a good beginning and a good ending, and they should be as close together as possible.”
_ George Burns
MO/PH END RNS
(Got some holy humor or funny religious anecdote you’d like to share? E-mail it to: JoyfulNZ(at)aol.com or postal-mail to: A Joyful Noise, P.O. Box 895, Portage, MI 49081.)
Editors: This December, RNS subscribers can use free samples of this new column of holiday religious humor, accompanied by a cartoon. Download jokes, a cartoon and a logo as you normally would, searching by subject or slug. Or you can click on the “Joyful Noise” logo on our home page. We won’t charge your account.
The text (jokes) are also below. We ask, however, that you package the cartoon and jokes together. Please credit Joyful Noise, which would like your readers to send them funny material. A new column will be posted each Friday. Finally, let us know if you’d like us to continue this column when the new year begins.
