New Confession Guide Bans Retelling of Liturgical Gaffes
May, 2008
Has a fellow Christian stuck a joke in your head about something inappropriate that happened once in church 20 years ago? Do you have an irresistible urge to snort every time this part of the liturgy comes around even though it's been 10 years since you heard the original story? Or perhaps you are the one who tells such anecdotes and are concerned about the effect this is having on other Christians.
For example, your friend relates the time that the reader finished the fiftieth Psalm by chanting, "...and they shall lay young buttocks upon thine altar." For the rest of your life, you are burdened by the impulse to laugh at that point in every Matins. You now suffer from a brain gopher that pops up at inappropriate times and is impossible to get rid of.
Never fear, repentance is on the way, as St. Vladyka's Press has published a new confession guide for these mind assaulters. Entitled Your Sin in Other People's Brains, the guide places bans on specific stories that have infected a generation of Orthodox brains.
The news has been received with both joy and trepidation in the Orthodox world. Barsanuphius Johnson, head of the alumni association of St. Vladyka's Seminary has said that the need for a deterrent to this kind of recurrent brain paralysis is obviously necessary.
"Of our graduates, 90 percent of them suffer from brain gophers and have to slow down at one point in the Liturgy of St. Basil," Johnson said. "They're afraid of repeating the mistake of a tongue-twisted priest who said, '...Round about You stand the Seraphim, one with six wings and the other with six wings; with two they cover their faces; with two they cover their fly...'"
Johnson added that only eight people were present at the moment of the original gaffe, however the story has been retold no fewer than 8,000 times at seminarian parties.
The focus of the guide is not on the person who gets tongue-twisted and says something silly or dirty, but upon those who repeat it. "The priest or reader who makes the mistake is at least trying to do the right thing," according to the guide. "The trouble is when the few people who actually hear the mistake tell their friends. Then tens of thousands of laypeople, priests and bishops are suppressing their snickers even when nobody makes a mistake."
The author continues: "When the deacon gets it right, the people listening are thinking it would be really funny if he said, '...Christ our God, who didst deign to be baptized in the John by Jordan ...'"
The guide includes recommended penances for gaffe re-tellers: For each victim of a brain gopher, the storyteller who planted the joke will be required to eat onepound of freezer-burned meat that church members thought "would still be goodat the end of Lent."
Rdr. John Prankus of the Church of All Saints of Southern North Dakota reacted with shock and disappointment about the announcement. "I sure hope this doesn't mean I have to stop telling the story about the uncooked popcorn in the censer," he said.
This report was filed by Onion Dome guest reporter Thomas
Ruthford.
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