I like optical illusions, I like puns and I've been known to imbibe a bit of religion from time to time as well. So, as you can imagine, this made my day...

Which pair of sisters is bigger?

The answer is.... 'Nun' (boom boom), they're in fact the same size!

If you don't believe me, hold a ruler (or a pen or something) against the screen and measure them. Weird huh?

Almost as weird as the word weird. I before E except after W?

As seen on Catholic with Attitude

From B3ta of course...

I'm a huge fan of theme blogs like Skull-a-day, Cake Wrecks and Goths in Hot Weather and I'm pleased to say I just stumbled across another one...

Featuring Race Car Sandwiches...

The Cubewich...

My favourite (because of the marvelous play on words) has to be Swine and Cheese!

Fantastic.

If you like your buns with puns (all my own work that one) then you can find more of the same at Insanewiches!

When I blogged recently about The Seven Most Holiest Places I didn't realise that there are also holy places that burn with holy fire...

The hole is the outcome not of nature but of an industrial accident. In 1971 a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. Having punctured a pocket of gas, poisonous fumes began leaking from the hole at an alarming rate. To head off a potential environmental catastrophe, the Soviets set the hole alight. The crater hasn't stopped burning since.

See Boing Boing for more...

I've heard of Home is a Holy Place but this is rediculous...

The Seven Most Holiest Places

I think my favourite is number six, no actually number three, um, maybe number four. It's so hard! They are all so holy...

Did somebody say something about a pile of stones at the Endsleigh Centre?

For the record, I should add that I find Sister Catherine's efforts in the praying for peace department to be entirely laudible and while cairn building isn't exactly my cup of tea it's quite likely a more worthwhile activity than people who cut and paste cans of beer for cheap laughs in the wee hours of the morning when they should be in bed.

This even is just a stones throw away from us...

As part of the effort to "Pray for Peace in the Holy Land", Sister Catherine invites you to join her to build a Cairn for Peace in the grounds of the Endsleigh Centre at 3 pm on Friday, June 5th. Come along and Bring a stone!

[link]

I like how "Pray for Peace in the Holy Land" is in quotes.

I hope you will all pile in because this event will rock. This is slated to be the event of the year and will be a marbleous occasion. If it goes wrong they will just have to chalk it up to experience. If it goes well maybe they will get in the igneous book of records.

My granite was who said she liked a good cairn.

As always, I am waiting with eager anticipation for your puns. A special challenge us to see if you can use puns on the words Sedimentary, Igneous, and Metamorphic all in one sentence.

The Punmaster Strikes Again...

Our Bishop is a funny man (you know how I love my puns). I did account (though you might want to cheque) but I reckon Bishop Drainey now holds the world record for most puns in a pastoral letter.

Gotta love the gender equality...

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

You might be forgiven for thinking that Christmas has already come and almost gone even before we finished celebrating Christ the King and moved into Advent! Given the present economic and cultural climate I am really thanking God for the blessing of Advent and all it brings - the richness of God’s Word and Promises, which will never go into recession; the teachings of the Church, which increase in value as the days and years pass; the wealth of the liturgy, which, if we invest in it, will give us plenty to live off for far more than the foreseeable future. Certainly here is something on which we can bank knowing that our interest will only grow as time goes on!

Wow. Ella and I are wondering if he did it for a dare...

Anyway, Bishop Drainey stops with the puns a moment to share with us the deposit of faith. The main themes are not sanitising the incarnation...

God in Christ enters into the mess and incompletion of our world and our personal lives too. Left to ourselves all we can do is wallow in the mess and lament all that is lacking, powerless to change either. In Christ a new light has dawned upon the world, in him the divine and the human are united never again to be divided.

...and looking forward as well as backwards...

While Advent is certainly about recalling Christ’s first coming at Christmas, it is also about his coming into my life, and your life and our accepting his promise and gift of salvation and all the graces and blessings that these bring in the here-and-now. However, we must also look to the day when that promise and gift of salvation will come to completion and fullness at the end of time when Christ will come again in glory.

Finally, Bishop Drainey throws a few more puns in for good measure...

We long for Christ to return in glory at the end of time when he will complete all that is lacking in our lives individually and as humanity. Here’s a currency we can count on. Shares in these truths will never decline in value. Invest in this creditable venture and you will never lose out.

A joyful, prayerful, hopeful Advent to you all and, when it comes, a peaceful, fruitful, fulfilling, and above all, a real and genuine celebration of Christmas to each and every one.

+Terence Patrick

Sterling work! It's possible to get carried away with puns but he has a good balance. You can read it in full here.

Feel free to offer your own money related puns in the comments below. I bet you can think up Lloyds of them.

Jesus Saves...

[link]

If you want to do something really scary this Halloween, you could apply for a job in the Middlesbrough Diocesan Youth Service...

Tomb it may concern...

Full-time Diocesan Youth Worker needed

The successful candidate will:

• be a committed and practising Catholic
• be experienced in Youth Ministry
• have excellent creative and communication skills.

Whilst the successful candidate will deliver the Youth Service programme in secondary schools throughout the whole Diocese, their main responsibility will be parish work in the southern half of the Diocese.

Salary in the range of £16,000-£19,000 pa to be confirmed in interview.

The post is for 11 months in the first instance.

Closing date for applications: 31st October 2008

[link]

31st of October: Halloween. Talk about a deadline...

Only ghouls need apply though, because there's no way they are going to employ a boy. Witches not fair.

I remember meeting the last Diocesan Youth Worker, when I first spider giving a talk. I thought - she spells trouble. It just ghost to show, though of corpse I had no idea how things would turn out.

These puns are terrible. It's a grave offence. I hope they are not too cryptic. I've got a bit of a cold so I can't stop coffin...

If anybody can demonstrate a good pun involving the word werewolf I will be very impressed. I just can't think howl get that in. I am at a dead loss.

Dead is a very easy Halloween pun to use. Which is dead handy.

What did the Vampire say about my puns? They suck!

Bats enough for now.

Update: We have a winner (one of the secret people who emails because of how friendly and open to criticism the Church in England and Wales is):

"The Middlesborough Diocese werewolfing down the secular trash about inclusiveness and so on."

Hurray!