Post-Lent Catholic Reads Bible, Realizes 40 Days on Floor Was For Nothing

29 APR 2011

REPORTS of a local tragedy have surfaced in Raleigh, North Carolina. Isabel Conway, who, according to 400 witnesses, gave up her bed for Lent, recently stumbled upon the annual Ash Wednesday reading and noticed a passage she'd overlooked for the last 24 years: the entire Gospel reading.

"Jesus says that doing good things in front of everybody to get attention don't count any more," says 10-year-old biblical scholar Jason Henderson, who put down his coloring book to listen to the priest for 3 minutes on Ash Wednesday this year.

"It's really tragic," said his mother, Jenny.  "I know how hard it was for Isabel to sleep on nothing but a blanket on the floor for 40 days - she would mention it every time we shook hands for the Sign of Peace."

She sighed. "It's a shame it didn't actually count for anything."

The 24-year-old graduate student, who often tells her friends she wishes people didn't think she was such a saint just because she loses sleep to serve others and prays constantly, noticed something odd when preparing a first grade Sunday School class.

"I was supposed to summarize the gospel passage," says Conway.  "And then I noticed Jesus kept saying that you should do holy things in secret, over and over and over.  And I thought, maybe something's there."

Conway's long-awaited bed, with goose down comforter
that served for floor for 40 days.

"This year for Lent, I slept on the floor for forty days," she continued. "It was super hard, but it was really great when people replied to my status updates telling me that I was the best Catholic they knew.  It almost made the excruciating discomfort of construction-grade rug a little more bearable.  Not to say that it was easy, because it was super hard, and uncomfortable, and one time I found this really gross spider 6 inches from my face, but it was nice to get some recognition.  You know?  But yeah, then I found this reading they "apparently" do every year and got really scared that I won't have added any bricks to my heavenly mansion. How scary is that?"

"She's really worried," confirmed her four housemates solemnly. "She said she expected 20,000 square feet of that sucker by now but now who knows if it'll even have a pool?"

In repentance, Conway has reportedly begun attending the parish's weekly Adoration hour to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet out loud in three languages.