:: St. Stephen's Musings ::

:: Friday, May 30, 2003 ::

Being Tempted by "Satin"

A little bit of humor for your Friday:

My Latin professor teaches a 100 level class on ancient Greek and Roman literature. He was reading some of the papers to our Latin class the other day when he came upon a rather amusing sentence. The paper was on St. Anthony, the founder of Christian monasticism and said this about him:

"St. Anthony spent many years in the dessert and endured many hardships, but especially was tempted by satin."

Read that sentence again...your eyes did not deceive you.
Ah, yes. Picture it with me now....

An old man in sandals and a cassock, trudging through a slippery mass of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup is going back to his cell (which is, of course, a hollowed out M&M). When he arrives, he spends a few hours trying to get the stickiness out of his clothes.
For many years, poor St. Another has suffered with dirty, messy, ice cream coated clothes.

Suddenly, an angel appears in the cell, bearing new soft, shimmering robes. He urges the old man to try them on, whispering how good these new robes will feel on his skin.

"Fasting, all-night vigils, and trials of many kinds--none of these compares with the temptation now before me," says our hero. "Truly, I have been tempted by satin now."

:: Karl :: 9:39:00 AM [Link] ::