A young monk arrives at a monastery and is assigned to help the other monks copy ancient church canons and laws by hand.
As he works, he notices something strange – everyone is copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.
Concerned, he approaches the Old Abbot.
“Father, if someone made even a small mistake in the first copy, that error would be repeated in every version after that,” he says.
The Old Abbot nods. “We’ve been copying from copies for centuries… but you make a good point, my son.”
So the Old Abbot goes down into the dark caves beneath the monastery, where the original manuscripts are locked away in a vault untouched for hundreds of years.
Hours pass… and he doesn’t return.
Worried, the young monk goes down to find him.
He discovers the Old Abbot banging his head against the wall, crying uncontrollably.
“We got it wrong! We got it wrong!”
His forehead is bruised, his voice trembling.
The young monk rushes over. “Father, what’s wrong?”
Through tears, the Old Abbot sobs:
“The word was… ‘celebrate’…
NOT ‘celibate’!”