On a lighter note, I just came across this in my files and thought it germane to some of our current discussions.  Regrettably, I have no indication of the source.  Can anyone help?

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THE DOCTRINE OF THE FELINE SEDENTATION

How would the Church of England deal with “the cat sat on the mat” if it appeared in the Bible?

The liberal theologians would point out that such a passage did not of course mean that the cat literally sat on the mat. Also, cat and mat had different meanings in those days from today, and anyway, the text should be interpreted according to the customs and practices of the period.

This would lead to an immediate backlash from the Evangelicals. They would make an essential condition of faith that a real physical, living cat, being a domestic pet of the species Felix Domesticus, and having a whiskered head and furry body, four legs and a tail, did physically place its whole body on a floor covering, designed for that purpose, and which is on the floor but not of the floor. The expression “on the floor but not of the floor” would be explained in a leaflet.

Meanwhile, the Catholics would have developed the Festival of the Sedentation of the Blessed Cat. This would teach that the cat was white and majestically reclined on a mat of gold thread before its assumption to the Great Cat Basket of Heaven. This is commemorated by the singing of the Magnificat, lighting three candles, and ringing a bell five times.

This would cause a schism with the Orthodox church, which believes tradition requires Holy Cats Day (as it is colloquially known), to be marked by lighting six candles and ringing the bell four times. This would partly be resolved by the Cuckoo Land Declaration recognizing the traditional validity of each.

Eventually, the House of Bishops would issue a statement on the Doctrine of the Feline Sedentation. It would explain, traditionally the text describes a domestic feline quadruped superadjacent to an unattached covering on a fundamental surface. For determining its salvific and eschatological significations, we follow the heuristic analytical principles adopted in dealing with the Canine Fenestration Question [How much is that doggie in the window?] and the Affirmative Musaceous Paradox [Yes, we have no bananas]. And so on, for another 210 pages.

The General Synod would then commend this report as a helpful resource material to explain to the man in the pew the difficult doctrine of “the cat sat on the mat.”

Very funny!

If you are familiar with the children’s book The fat cat sat on the mat, you know that there would be those who would plead the case of the rat, the bat, and the hat to be fully allowed access to the mat. Wiccan groups would object to the portrait of Wilma the witch and her crazy broom while some Charismatics would object to the mere presence of the witch.

Love it!!! Of course, in Australia, the original home of Felix the Cat, the observance, by any religious or non-religious group, would always fall on a Monday. Our most important festivals always fall on a Monday, if at all possible, thus maintaining the most sacred festival episodes on the Australian calendar, Longweekend. More soberly, we would eschew any candling as contributing to global warming and increased carbonization.

This is funny!  Of course, feminist would point out that any idea that the cat was female or white was merely a projection of male distortion of the feminine and that a female cat would not have been reclining but busy tending to the real work of cats.  To which a fundamentalist would add, “lest you believe that a cat literally reclined on a mat, you cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.”  To which Charlie Brown would reply, “Good grief.”