Things to be thankful for

Usually when I talk about something about the Catholic Church that I am grateful for, it is something like the Eucharist, or the Sacrament of Confession, or the consolation of the Truth, or something grand like that. But instead today I was thinking of something more mundane. In my experience, you will almost never see a marquee-type sign with a lame or goofy attempt at humor in front of a Catholic church.

On a Protestant church you can expect to see something like "Want to avoid burning? Try Son block," "The prodigal son's brother was having a bad heir day," or "Jesus should be your steering wheel, not your spare tire." Which is cute, and I realize the point, to try to make some message stick in the head of a passerby (I know I can remember quite a few of them), but it also has the effect of making you think of their church as trivial, lame, and banal (and by extension church in general if this is the only or main type of church you know, or you know them mainly from passing by).

A Catholic, however, doesn't have to be severe all the time or lack a sense of humor, but he knows that his church is a sacred place, with an august majesty that is not to be sacrificed for a groan and a laugh. The sign out front reflects this gravitas - it says simply "St. Somebody Roman Catholic Church" and perhaps also a tersely worded schedule of Sunday Mass, daily Mass, and confession.

I've also noticed that even among Protestant churches, the ones with the jokes are usually the ones who have a lot of space to fill up after listing when their Sunday service is, as opposed to the ones who use the space to tell when the Bible studies or weekday liturgies are.

Update: Oh, I can't believe I forgot "With God all things are popsicles." Really. What is that even supposed to mean? I should send that one to this guy, but I don't know if he'll believe me.