Of Jesters and Holy Men

As a born, raised and semi-practicing Catholic, I have, on occasion considered becoming a priest.

As a born, raised and practicing pop-culture addict, I have, on occasion considered becoming a stand-up comedian.

There are a lot of similarities between these two professions. Sure, a priest will tell the occasional joke during his homily, and a comedian will occasionally hit on religious topics, but the similarities go beyond that.

It comes down to the function of the job itself. Here are some ways being a priest and a comedian are alike:

• Both professions rely on a singular person communicating to a large group of people
• Both rely on coming up with new material to keep their audiences interested 
• Both provide a greater understanding of the world around them

The first point is fairly self explanatory, a comedian takes the stage and a priest stands on the altar. They speak to their respective audiences and in the priest's case during a homily, neither expect to have the audience respond to what they are saying.

The second point also speaks to the homily. Priests need to come up with material on a pretty regular basis, even more so than comedians. Priests are coming up with new homilies on a weekly to daily basis to provide new insight into the gospels. Comedians need to create new material because they can't make a career out of telling the same jokes over and over.

The last point may be hard to understand, but I'll do my best to explain. A good priest will make sure the homily connects to what is going on in the world the parishioners live in. I'm not talking about general themes of evil existing in the world, I'm talking about pulling specific examples to directly parallel what is happening in a gospel of reading to connect with the modern world. Comedians do the same thing. It's called observational humor. Jerry Seinfeld is a master of it. A comedian takes an everyday occurrence and points out the absurdity in it. For example, recently I was listening to some stand-up from a comedian named John Mulaney (if you don't know him, look him up) who made a joke about how pirates never seem to bring the right size chest when they collect their treasure. 

All we ever see is chests overflowing with treasure. It's just something we accept because that's how it has always been presented. But an outsider can point out how that doesn't really make any sense. 

It's always interesting to me to find the connections between things that don't really seem to go together, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say there are some overarching similarities between these two professions.

Favorite joke ever told by a priest:
A guy is fishing on Loch Ness when al of the sudden his boat is thrown into the air. He looks down and sees the open jaws of the Loch Ness Monster beneath him. He cries out, "Oh Lord, please save me!"

The man's boat freezes in midair and a voice from the heavens asks, "Why should I save you? You've never believed in me before?"

The man says, "Well, yeah, but a few seconds ago I never believed in the Loch Ness Monster either."

Church humor!