CAT SAT ON THE MAT

Thanks to Alex Ball for today's PearlyGates item.

*How would we 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, the 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 Felix Domesticus species, 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 ritualist high-churchers 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 Orthadox Church which believes tradition

requires Holy Cat Days (as it is colloquially known), to be marked by

lighting six candles and ringing the bell four times.  This would be partly

resolved by the Cuckoo land Declaration recognising the traditional validity

of each.

Eventually, the bishops would issue a statement on the Doctrine of the

Feline Sedentation.  It would explain, traditionally the text describes a

domestic feline quadruped superjacent to an attached 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 CofE Church House would then commend the report as helpful resource

material for clergy to explain to the man in the pew the difficult doctrine

of the cat sat on the mat.

The Methodist Conference would set up a working party, to report back in

three years time, on the discrimination felt by mat-less cats within the

church.  A service would appear in Magnet involving lighting a single candle

and inviting everyone to sit around it on their own mat.