Football & Confession

"Horse Racing"

Charlie was a regular visitor at the racetrack. One
afternoon he noticed an unusual sight. Right before
the first race, a Catholic Priest visited one of the
horses in the stable area and gave it a blessing.
Charlie watched the horse race very carefully, and,
sure enough, the blessed horse came in first.

Charlie followed the Priest before the next race.
Again, the Priest went to the stables and blessed
another horse. Charlie quickly put two dollars on that
horse and won close to fifty bucks! The Priest kept
blessing horses and Charlie kept betting on them and
they won!

The last race of the day was the biggest and Charlie
saw the Priest with that horse, also! He quickly went
to his bank and withdrew his life's savings of $20,000,
went back to the racetrack and put it all on that horse!

He watched the race in certain anticipation of leaving
a millionaire. The horse was last to cross the line and
Charlie was dead broke! He couldn't believe what
happened so he went looking for the Priest.

He found the man and asked, "What happened to that last
horse you blessed? Because your blessing didn't work,
I've lost all of my money!"

The Priest said, "That's the trouble with you, you can't tell
the difference between a blessing and the Last Rites!"

***********************************

"Football & Confession"

Years ago, the chaplain of the football team at Notre Dame was a
beloved old Irish priest.

At confession one day, a football player told the priest that he had
acted in an unsportsmanlike manner at a recent football game. "I lost
my temper and said some bad words to one of my opponents." "Ahhh,
that's a terrible thing for a Notre Dame lad to be doin'," the priest
said. He took a piece of chalk and drew a mark across the sleeve of
his coat.

"That's not all, Father. I got mad and punched one of my opponents."

"Saints preserve us!" the priest said, making another chalk mark.

"There's more. As I got out of a pileup, I kicked two of the other
team's players in the . . . in a sensitive area."

"Oh, goodness me!" the priest wailed, making two more chalk marks on
his sleeve. "Who in the world were we playin' when you did these
awful things?"

"Southern Methodist."

"Ah, well," said the priest, wiping his sleeve, "boys will be boys."
Received on Wed Aug 25 11:59:26 2004