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"SIPPING VODKA"
is a piece of anonymous humor that predates the Internet, rolling in reams off
church photocopiers--nay, mimeographs!--since at least the 1960's.
I once succumbed to a Friday afternoon temptation to rework this hoary item.
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D.Th.
A new priest at his first Gnostic Mass was so nervous he could hardly speak.
After Mass he asked his bishop how he had done. The bishop replied, "When I am
worried about getting nervous on the dais, I put a little vodka in the tomb.
If I start to get nervous beforehand, I take a sip."
So next Sunday he took the bishop's advice. During the Creed, he got nervous
and took a drink. He performed the Mass with great vigor.
Upon his return home after mass, he found the following message in his e-mail:
- Have a sip of vodka, don't chug the bottle.
- The Three Regular Steps should be in a straight line.
- You are to administer the virtues "unto" the brethren, not "under" them.
- We invoke by "seed and root and stem and bud and leaf and flower and fruit." The addition of "thorn and burr" is unnecessary.
- Hadit is "the secret flame that burns in every heart," not "the secret flaming heartburn."
- If you must drool copiously on the priestess' knees, take a moment to clean up after yourself at the end of the Collects.
- When displaying the host to the congregation, please refrain from exclaiming, "Check it out!"
- The anthem concludes with "sap of the world ash, wonder-tree," not "shape of a world ash, wonder-twin!"
- The proper formula for declaring communion is *not* "God's got nothing on me, baby!"
- Playing mumbledy-peg with the sacred Lance during popular communion is inappropriate.
- The second clause of the closing benediction is *not* "May the Lord turn you on, tune you in, and drop you out."
Offerimus tibi donum corpus dei.
Researches and Recreations
The Exposed Adytum