Divine hacker at work?

We hear a lot about the power of prayer. I wonder whether a Christian Brother has seen my site and been on his knees looking heavenwards to make a special request to Blessed Edmund Rice, the 19th century founder of the Congregation. Or maybe someone working for Facebook is a Vatican secret agent.

It seems to be working ok now, but a week ago a small but strange thing happened to my Facebook site. The Christian Brothers' crest pictured above which I rather cheekily chose as a site logo suddenly disappeared, and there was no way I could put it back! I tried changing the picture, even tried to replace it with one of my cats, but no. The space seemed to be well and truly hexed.

Supernatural forces at work? The incident reminded me of a horror story told to us at school by a devout Christian Brother - I can't remember his name, so I'll call him Brother O'Muffin.

It was on these lines. A blacksmith who happened to be an atheist decided to test the doctrine of transubstantiation. Presenting himself at Communion, he took the consecrated wafer on his tongue but slyly, when the priest's back was turned, removed and hid it. Then it was back to his forge where the burly blacksmith took out the holy bread and placed it on his anvil.

"Now let's see what Christ's Body is made of!" he exclaimed, bringing down his hammer with all the force he could muster. "And do you know boys," said Brother O'Muffin to his hushed and horrified little group of ten-year-olds, "the holy wafer began to bleed, just like the drops of blood from the wounds they made on dear Jesus with the crown of thorns."

The story didn't stop there. We learnt that the drops of blood turned from a trickle to a flood, and that within minutes the terrified blacksmith was standing up to his knees in a gory red rising tide which had flooded every inch of his forge.

I can't remember how it ended. In medieval times, wandering friars told stories like this to credulous congregations, but generally with a gruesome ending: the blacksmith would have drowned in the holy blood while cursing and calling on the Devil to save him. Perhaps the gentle Brother O'Muffin told us simply that the blacksmith rushed to be baptised and confessed his horrible sin in the nearest church imploring the Blessed Virgin to save him.

The simple-minded friars who took advantage of the credulity of their peasant audiences were a regular target of Protestant Reformation leaders like John Calvin. I can't help thinking that the fantastic drivel which some Christian Brothers entertained us naive pupils with was in its way a kind of child abuse, even though it was hardly on the same level as the strapping and the groping that others indulged in.