Thanks to Pat & Sue for sharing this joke with us.
A new young monk
arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help 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." So, he goes down into the dark
caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscript is held 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 downstairs to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the
wall. 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 is
celebrate."
