Father Murphys Donkey

[Robby nz]

Father Murphy was the priest in a poor parish and the church roof had started to leak.

The Father had a problem of not having any money to repair the leak and asked his congregation for ideas.

Patrick Flynn suggested that the church should get a horse as all horse owners had plenty of money.

Father Murphy thought this was a good idea and although he knew nothing about horses he went to a horse sale and bought a likely animal.

When he got it home Patrick Flynn saw it and but father ‘that’s not a horse it’s a donkey’.

This must be a sign from the lord thought the priest. Did not the blessed virgin herself not ride into Bethlehem on a donkey?

He took the donkey to a horse trainer who didn’t want anything to do with a donkey but as he was a good Catholic he couldn’t refuse the priest so agreed to train the donkey to race.

The donkey turned out to be really fast and could beat a lot of the horses so when a big horse racing week arrived Father Murphy entered the donkey in a race on the first day.

The race committee were all Catholics and couldn’t refuse a priest so the donkey was allowed to run.

On the first day of the races the donkey came in second in its race and the church got a good pay out.

The editor of the local paper who was a protestant saw this and came out with the headline:

“FATHER MURPHY’S ASS SHOWS”

The donkey was entered in another race the next day and won, that day the headline in the paper was:

“FATHER MURPHYS ASS OUT IN FRONT”

The Bishop heard about this and called Father Murphy to see what was going on and was told how the donkey was getting a lot of money to have the church roof repaired and how it only needed to win again and there would be enough money to do the job.

The Bishop agreed to let the donkey run again as long as there was no more bad publicity.

The next day the donkey came in third in its race prompting the headline:

“FATHER MURPHYS ASS BACK IN PLACE”

The Bishop called again and said ‘enough Murphy no more racing’.

But said father Murphy we almost have enough to fix the roof now one more race and we will have enough.

Ok said the Bishop I’ll give you the rest of what you need as long as the donkey doesn’t race again so Father Murphy withdrew it from the race the next day.

The editor who was following things closely heard of this and came out with the headline:

“BISHOP PAYS FATHER MURPHY TO SCRATCH HIS ASS”

The Bishop called again and yelled “Enough Murphy get rid of that animal give it away or something”

As it happened Sister Mary at the convent loved animals and they had a big field at the back of the convent so Father Murphy gave the donkey to Sister Mary.

The editor who was selling more papers than ever before wasn’t going to let a good story go so came out with the headline:

“SISTER MARY HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN”

The Bishop called in a real temper and told Father Murphy to get the animal right out of the district, sell it or something.

So Sister Mary sold the donkey to an out of town horse dealer for 10 pounds.

This prompted the headline:

“SISTER MARY SELLS ASS FOR TEN POUNDS”

The Bishop died of a heart attack that night.