Ok, so since I'm on a roll...might as well be as productive as my cold feet will let me. I have no doubt most everyone that chooses to read this also heard about Il Papa's misfortune on Christmas Eve. There is just nothing sacred these days, even the pope! A 25 year old Italian/Swiss Bambino jumped over people and devices designed to keep the holy father at arm's length from the masses, grabbed his holiness' vestments, and dragged the pope and a well placed cardinal to the floor as they entered St. Peter's for early midnight mass. The cardinal suffered a broken leg or hip, but the pope was unhurt in what could have been a tragedy. Funny thing is, this young babe had tried to have this kind of papal audience for each of the past two years, without success. Now, growing up as a young Catholic boy in good standing, this kind of extreme worship was sooo COMPLETELY unthinkable, as to be more than just merely heretical. Can you imagine if Dorothy had jumped on the Wizard of Oz instead of just whining about Kansas? Kind of trashes the story. The nuns that so dutifully raised us in parochial school also spent a lot of time describing what might happen to any of us (especially the boys), should we even THINK about threatening, disobeying, or even laughing behind their backs. Jumping on the pope's _ ss in ROME, at Christmas, during MIDNIGHT MASS.........would have been just purely suicidal....and not for the obvious reasons. Back in those days, the Swiss guards would have handed you back to your parents. Your mother would have handled it from there, and it would never even get on America's Most Wanted.....
We also learned over the holidays that dear old Oral Roberts finally got to meet his mortgage banker. Seems that even though he managed to survive God's promise to call him home a few years ago if he didn't raise enough money for his University, God called in the loan anyway. What is so ironic to me......maybe he should have stood in for the pope at Midnight Mass!
God bless us, one and all........
Jon
