Monastery Life
A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to
helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws
of the church by hand.
He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from
copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk
goes 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, says, "We have been copying from the
copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
He goes down into the dark caves underneath
the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as
archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds
of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.
So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look
for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and
wailing, "We missed the "R" ! , we missed the "R" !"
His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying
uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's
wrong, father?"
With A choking voice, the old abbot replies,
"The word was celebRate !!"
