M.A. Screech > Quotes

“Invicem insanire videmur: Each to the other we seem insane.”
― M.A. Screech, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross

“In the light of what Thomas Aquinas and Erasmus wrote it is amusing to find that Thomas himself became the butt of a jest which embodied what they both loathed. Thomas was silently composing a hymn in his mind while eating a lamprey. He finished hymn and lamprey together. To give thanks to God for his hymn he muttered one of Christ’s seven last words on the Cross, Consummatum est! — ‘It is finished!’ Bystanders were shocked. They thought he was lightly referring to the lamprey he had just consumed.”
― M.A. Screech, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross

“Madness is the key. Elijah laughed at the frenzied priests of Baal because he knew with prophetic certainty that they were mad; the hooligan boys who laughed at Elisha did so because they thought he – and his God – were mad. High priests, soldiers, crowds and thieves laughed at Christ during his trial and passion, sure that the wretched fellow was mad: he had insane delusions about rebuilding the Temple in three days and being the Son of God (just as today cartoonists may sketch a madman as someone who believes he is Napoleon).”
― M.A. Screech, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross