A Very Big Deal!

As you some of you know, it’s customary for many seminaries to send their advanced students into parishes for a kind of internship before ordination. As the story goes, as one such seminarian was delivering the last message of his internship, he noticed a woman in the congregation who was silently crying. Immediately after the final blessing, he went outside the church to ask the woman why she was so upset, and if he could be of any help. She said, “It’s because you are leaving us.” With all the false modesty he could muster, the seminarian replied, “Oh, please don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll send someone better to replace me.” To which she countered, “Oh, that’s what they say every year but it keeps on getting worse and worse.”

While we’re on the topic, in a popular comic strip-1, a preacher is greeting members of his congregation at the door of the Church after services. A young man in the congregation is finding it…