A New Monk
A new young monk arrives at the monastery and as with all new monks 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 as archives
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, and wailing, "We forgot the
"R"! "We forgot the "R"! "We forgot the "R"! "We forgot the "R"!
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!"
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