Theological Chickens

St Augustine: Late have I crossed the road, so ancient and so new. Late have I crossed you.

St Francis of Assisi: It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. Therefore, I crossed the road.

St Thomas Aquinas: After crossing the road, all I have written seems to me like so much straw.

Dorothy Day: As Dostoevsky said, “To cross the road in reality is a terrible and harsh thing compared to crossing the road in dreams.”

Mother Teresa: We are not called to be successful in crossing the road, but faithful.

St Therese de Lisieux: I know! MY VOCATION IS CROSSING THE ROAD!

Martin Luther: Here I stand, I cannot cross the road, so help me God.

John Wesley: My heart was strangely warmed, and thus I crossed the road.

Ulrich Zwingli: I crossed the road to destroy this image, an obvious font of idol-worship.

John Calvin: In his inscrutable wisdom, God eternally predestined the chicken to cross the road … and be damned.

Pope John Paul II: We stand on the threshold of hope, ready to cross the road.

Pope Paul VI: If you want peace, work at crossing the road.

St Teresa of Avila: After tripping and landing in a puddle in the middle of the crosswalk, she sensed God saying to her, “This is how I treat my friends.” Teresa answered, “Lord, no wonder you have so few!”

Teilhard de Chardin: The chicken was pursuing a teleological upsurge toward final consumation in the Omega Point of Divine Love.

Flannery O’Connor: The chicken was struck by a truck while crossing the road, but experienced a flash of grace in the instant of its death. I prefer peacocks anyway.

St Albertus Magnus: Whether the chicken crossed the road?

Objection: It seems that the chicken did not cross the road, for chickens are accustomed to the farmyards that are the source of their food, and the henhouse that is the source of their rest.

On the contrary, “And God said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, and take with you seven pairs of birds of the air” — which could not have been accomplished had the chickens not crossed the road.

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: We don’t care why the chicken crossed the road, as long as it had the right of way and crossed in an approved crosswalk.

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments: We’re not sure, but if it was trying to reach across the road to hold hands with another chicken during the Lord’s Prayer, we may have to butcher it.

Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: The Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that this joke is not in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church because 1) it lacks Trinitarian organization; 2) it fails to teach about the judgment of all chickens and the real possibility of hell for all chickens; 3) it fails to mention the fallen nature of the chicken; 4) it fails to use the male personal pronoun to refer to God . . . in fact, it doesn’t mention God at all. Why we are reviewing this? What was the question again?

St. Lawrence of Rome: Run, chicken, run! Run from the rotisserie!

Moses: And the angel of the Lord went before the chicken, and there was a strong wind, and the traffic parted before the chicken, so that it was able to go into the midst of the road, with the traffic forming a wall on the left and a wall on the right, so that the chicken crossed the road safely. The farmer pursued the chicken into the midst of the road, and the angel of the Lord looked down on the chicken, and the traffic closed in on the farmer, so that the chicken did prevail with the help of the Lord.

Father Daniel Berrigan: Clearly, the chicken crossed the road as a nonviolent protest of the road’s implication in the military-industrial complex.

Job: … and while we’re getting into it, why did the chicken cross the road, anyway?

God: Who is this who dares darken counsel by asking why the chicken crossed the road? Gird your loins like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me: Where were you when I made the chicken, with its ineffectual yet tasty wings? Did you give the chicken its cluck? Is it by your wisdom that the chicken runs, flapping its wings toward the distant horizon? Did you set the foundations of the earth upon which the road runneth? Answer, for surely you are great in years!

Job: Of what account am I? See, I will lay my hand on my mouth, and ask no more why the chicken crossed the road.

St. Paul: Let us hope that the chicken had a life-changing encounter with the risen Christ along the way.

St Gregory Palamas: I see! I see! With Spirit-filled eyes I see the line in the middle of the road, signifying the ineffable distinction between the divine essence and energies. I shall cross and be transfigured!