Horse Sense
Sr. Aoife was exhausted.
Every Christmas Eve she organised a big party for the children in the local orphanage. It was always the highlight of the year for them. Every evening, since the first of December, she had been busy baking all kinds of the most delicious cakes and buns for the feast at the finish.
She also arranged for the local shops to donate toys and presents so that each child could get a special gift and then she wrapped them in her own dazzling display of Christmas decorating paper.
Every child’s favourite part of the day at the party was when Sr. Aoife told a story.
After the party, Sr. Aoife was sitting by the window in the huge hall on the ground floor, with two chambers for sleeping above it, as she opened a letter from home and found a £20 note inside as her Christmas gift from her family in Kerry.
Sr. Aoife was a big believer in knowing the true meaning of Christmas. While reading the letter she noticed a poor beggar sitting in the rain outside. She jumped out of her seat and wrapped the £20 note in a piece of paper which carried a simple message: ‘Have courage. Sister Aoife.’ She threw it out the window and the beggar accepted it gleefully.
On St Stephen’s Day, Mother Caoimhe, the cross-looking Mother Superior, approached Sr. Aoife in the study and, with a raised eyebrow and a strong sense of disapproval, told her that ‘a shabby man’ was at the door, who was insisting on seeing her. Her face was black with anger as she left the room, and her irate muttering remained audible even as she walked purposefully down the corridor. Dark clouds massed over the leafy darkness of the convent, promising an early dusk and rain before morning.
A puzzled Sr. Aoife found the beggar waiting. He handed her £200 without a word.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘Have Courage came in at ten to one in the one-thirty at Leopardstown.’
Do You Know it’s Christmas?
In the past, obedience was to the Mother Superior and her biases and prejudices ruled supreme. To take one example, after Christmas dinner in one of the convents, the Mother Superior graciously passed around a box of sweets and instructed: ‘Take plenty. Take two.’
The Sound of Silence
A young idealistic man joins a monastery of a silent order.
He was allowed to speak just two words every ten years.
After the first ten years he said to the Abbot: ‘Terrible cold.’
Ten years later he went to the Abbot again and said: ‘Food awful.’
Ten more years passed and he went to the Abbot and said: ‘I’m leaving.’
The Abbot smiled with joy: ‘Thank God. You have done nothing but complain since you arrived here.’
Wisdom
The abbot’s annual Christmas joke was: ‘A baguette in a zoo is an example of bre(a)d in captivity.’
Nativity Story
Little Molly was disappointed because she was not cast as an angel in the nativity play in her kindergarten class. Instead she was cast as the Virgin. She turned to her friend Sandra for consolation. Sandra rose to the occasion: ‘My mother told me it is much harder to be a virgin than an angel.’
A Christmas Treat
Sr. Margaret was loved by all because of her big heart and generous nature. She had a particular soft spot for her grand-nieces. Their favourite treat was Romantica ice cream. On Christmas Day they religiously came to the convent to give her a Christmas present. It was always a woollen scarf. Sr. Margaret always gave them some ice cream. On Christmas Eve, she went to the local shop to buy some ice cream. The shop was crammed with last-minute shoppers. Everyone smiled at Sr. Margaret as she made her way to the counter. Unfortunately, in the excitement, she had a temporary loss of memory and could not remember the name ‘Romantica’. After a protracted pause, there was a collective intake of breath all around the shop as she said: ‘Can I have a big packet of Erotica please?’