Father O'Malley rose from his bed one morning. It was a fine spring day in his new west Texas mission parish. He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of the beautiful day outside. He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He promptly called the local police station. The conversation went like this:

"Good morning. This is Sergeant Jones. How might I help you?"

"And the best of the day te yerself. This is Father O'Malley at St. Ann's Catholic Church. There's a jackass lying dead in me front lawn and would ye be so kind as to send a couple o'yer lads to take care of the matter?"

Sergeant Jones, considering himself to be quite a wit and recognizing the foreign accent, thought he would have a little fun with the good father, replied, "Well now Father, it was always my impression that you people took care of the last rites!"

There was dead silence on the line for a long moment.......

Father O'Malley then replied: "Aye,'tis certainly true; but we are also obliged to notify the next of kin first, which is the reason for me call."

Our Daily Chicken

Frank Purdue arranges to visit the Pope. After receiving the papal blessing he whispers, "Your Eminence, do we have a deal for you. If you change The Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread....'to 'give us this day our daily chicken....' we will donate $500 million dollars to the Church".

The Pope responds saying, "That is impossible. The Prayer is the Word of the Lord and it must not be changed".

"Well then," says Frank Purdue, "we are prepared to donate $1 billion the Church if you change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread....' to 'give us this day our daily chicken...."

Again the Pope replies "That is impossible. The Prayer is the Word of the Lord and it must not be changed".

Finally, Frank Perdue says to the Pope,"Sir, this is our last offer. We will donate $5 billion to the church if you change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread....' to 'give us this day our daily chicken....'" and he leaves.

The next day the Pope meets with the College of Cardinals. "I have good news, and I have bad news," he tells them.

"The good news is that the Church has come into $5 billion ... The bad news is that we're losing The Wonderbread Account"

Hot Air

My pastor friend put sanitary hot air hand dryers in the rest rooms at his church and after two weeks took them out. I asked him why and he confessed that they worked fine but when he went in there he saw a sign that read,

"For a sample of this week's sermon, push the button."

Advance Notice

A bishop visited a church in his diocese. Only three people turned up to hear him peach.

He asked the Vicar "Did you give notice of my visit?".

"No" replied the vicar, "but word seems to have got round anyway".

Last Rites

A man lay dying and he began to yell out, "I need a priest, I need a priest!"

Another man came along and asked what was wrong.

The dying man said, "I need a priest to give me last rites, I'm dying," the man said.

"There are no priests around here, but maybe I can help." I'm not a religious person myself, but I have lived next to the Catholic Church my whole life and I hear their ritual all the time. I think that I can say it for you."

The dying man said, "Thank You."

So the helpful man leaned close to the dying man and in a soft voice repeated the ritual as he has heard it so many times:

"B-6, N-33, G-52, I-24, ... Bingo."

Drive on Grandma

Grandma is eighty-eight years old and still drives her own car. She writes:

Dear Grand-daughter,

The other day I went up to our local Christian book store and saw a 'Honk if you love Jesus' bumper sticker ...

I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting..

So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper.

Boy, am I glad I did; what an uplifting experience that followed.

I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn't notice that the light had changed.

It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn't honked, I'd never have noticed.

I found that lots of people love Jesus!

While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy, and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, 'For the love of God! Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO!'

What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus!

Everyone started honking!

I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people.

I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love!

There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach.

I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air.

I asked my young teenage great-grandson in the back seat what that meant.

He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something.

Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii , so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back.

My great-grandson burst out laughing.

Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!!

A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me.

I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed.

So, grinning, I waved at all my brothers and sisters, and drove on through the intersection.

I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared.

So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!!

Will write again soon,

Love, Grandma

Preaching to a Bear

A priest, a preacher and a Rabbi walked into their favorite bar, where they would get together two or three times a week for drinks and to talk shop.

On this particular afternoon, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn't really all that hard. A real challenge would be to preach to a bear.

One thing led to another and they decided to do an experiment. They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt to convert it.

Seven days later, they're all together to discuss the experience.

Father Flannery, who has his arm in a sling, is on crutches, and has various bandages, goes first.
"Well," he says, "I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary Mother of God, he became as gentle a lamb. The bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation."

Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, with an arm and both legs in casts, and an IV drip. In his best fire and brimstone oratory he claimed, " WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don't sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek. So I quick DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day praising Jesus."

They both looked down at the rabbi, who was lying in a hospital bed. He was in a body cast and traction with IV's and monitors running in and out of him. He was in bad shape. "What happened with you?" they asked.

"Looking back," he says, "maybe I shouldn’t have started with the circumcision."