Two “Connecting the Dots” shows

One on Mary Magdalene:

And one with Simcha where we talked a bit about the distinction between swearing and vulgarity (and how intimately vulgarity is tied to class distinctions in the English-speaking world, as well as to a curiously post-Reformation discomfort with the organic that doesn’t seem to bother Chaucer or Shakespeare. We also talked about other fun stuff. Bottom line, swearing (i.e., taking God’s name in vain) is taken *very* seriously in Scripture. Vulgarity, while not particularly approved, is not really a very big deal in the Catholic tradition. It’s a minor sin at best and often not even that. It is St. Paul, after all, who compares his former life to “skubala” (politely translated as “refuse”) and who makes a bawdy joke about the Galatian circumcision party in which he wishes they’d go the whole way and castrate themselves. It’s been a while since a bishop has given a homily like that (though I can imagine Francis doing it if somebody got him really ticked off). Anyway, here’s the show (and we also talked about lots of other fun stuff):