Thursday, February 02, 2006

The forgotten "R"


A young monk arrived at the monastery. He was assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws ofthe church by hand. He noticed, however, that all of the monks were copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.

So, the new monk went to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up. In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk, said, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries,but you make a good point, my son." So, he went down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts were held as archives in a locked vault that hadn't been opened for hundreds of years.

Hours went by and nobody saw the old abbot. So, the young monk got worried and went down to look for him.

He saw him banging his head against the wall, and wailing, "We forgot the"R", we forgot the "R." His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he was crying uncontrollably. The young monk asked theold abbot, "What's wrong, father?"

With a choking voice, the old abbot replied, "The word was 'celebrate'."

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