Category: Amusements

Even a religious song can be the occasion of a mondegreen, a case of misheard lyrics. Gathering Goat Eggs has an example.

Hamdog!

I arrived early for a Byzantine liturgy on Saturday night and joined the choir practice underway. A priest was explaining that during the first gospel reading, the line “He is not here! He is risen!” is read three times, with the server’s bells rung each time. A hand went up: “Father, do you think we could all make our cell phones ring then?”

Another underappreciated ministry:
A couple dressed as doctors and wearing clown outfits arrive at the Gemelli hospital where Pope John Paul II is being treated in Rome, February 4, 2005. The pair told reporters that they were children’s’ doctors specializing in ‘smile therapy’ on the hospital’s children’s ward and had come to cheer up the Pope. The pair, Doctor Sara Filanti, known as Doctor Doughnut and her colleague Doctor White Cabbage, were taken away by police.
Normally, I think clowns should be taken away by the police, but these two, lacking the full face-paint treatment, were only mildly freaky.

The National Shrine of our Lady Queen of the Universe in East Boston is one of the oddest religious structures around: built into a hillside, it doesn’t have a church on top, but an open plaza and outdoor chapel. When you enter the building, you go down two floors to the main church, a broad auditorium, and to the Shrine’s function rooms. On the same floor as the church is this locked doorway:

When I was there, the Christorama wasn’t open, but I’ll be back. What other well-intentioned displays of tackiness can you think of at parishes and shrines?