
A new young monk arrived at a monastery and as with all new monks he was assigned to help the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.
He noticed, however, that all of the monks were copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.
So, the new monk went 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 replied, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
So, the head monk went down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscript was locked in a vault that hadn't been opened for hundreds of years.
Hours went by and everyone noticed that the old abbot had not returned. The young monk became worried and went downstairs to look for him.
He found him banging his head against the wall, and wailing, "We forgot the "R"! "We forgot the "R"! "We forgot the "R"! "We forgot the "R"!
His forehead was all bloody and bruised and he was crying uncontrollably.
The young monk asked the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With a choking voice, the old abbot replied, "The word is celebrate!”
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