Jesus - out of blood by now?

Part I of the I Believe in Miracles series

Frodologist scientists inadvertently made great inroads into explaining the Christian faith today. Long puzzled by the sustainability of Christian hematophagy, the team first began by searching for hidden blood reserves. When this proved fruitless, they then followed up reports that the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro was actually a massive vessel of the vintage red stuff. At first discounting the theory as ridiculous, since the statue clearly wasn’t a ship, they then discovered a second meaning of the word, and set off for Brazil.

The team began to search for a giant tap, dubbed the ‘holy spigot’, which they hypothesized would be used to access the holy blood. When no tap could be found, however, the theory was abandoned for the much more logical conclusion that Jesus is permanently attached to a blood transfusion machine. Red Cross confidentiality being what it is, the scientists were at a loss as to how to begin the search.

It was then that the breakthrough occurred. The team went back to basics and began crunching numbers. They reasoned that the average human adult has approximately 5 L of blood in their system at a given time. Discovering then that each communion sip measures in at around 10 mL, they concluded that Jesus would be completely drained of blood within just 500 sips. Even with a robust immune system and healthy bone marrow, they found it would be impossible to replenish the requisite amount in the weekly ten minute orgiastic bloodletting that is a Catholic communion. Even with a small congregation, Jesus would struggle to feed it all before becoming a useless fleshy sack of bones. And that’s ignoring the thousands of years for which Catholics have practiced the art of vampirism.

Some Catholics argue that Jesus isn’t exsanguinated on a weekly basis because wine is simply transformed into blood before each communion. But that seems strange. Grape DNA hasn’t been irradiated into human DNA since that episode of The Simpsons that never got made because the plot was too absurd.

This track of reasoning has led the team of Frodologist scientists to an uncomfortable conclusion. Since Jesus’ seemingly inexhaustible supply of blood is inexplicable by science, it is clearly the result of a miracle. As an alternative to science, miracles of course benefit from enormous explanatory power. They can tie a premise to any conceivable conclusion without the tedium of scientific investigation, and best of all, are unassailable by critics. Anything seen as preposterous by science is much more easily swallowed when it becomes a miracle.

This inadvertent discovery thus bolstered Christianity’s hold on humanity. There are however two positive outcomes for Frodology in all this. First, through harnessing the efficacy of miracles, the team was able to reanimate the petrified corpse of Frodo’s pet ferret, Mungo, from orange peels and old newspapers. The scientists offered their thanks to Frodo that miracles are so egalitarian and non-discriminatory in their performances.

The second outcome is that, thanks to the abovementioned miracle, Catholics really are gorging themselves on blood every Sunday. The unavoidable conclusion is that, having supped from the blood of Christ, the original poster child for the resurrected undead, all Catholics have forsaken their bodies and souls to join Jesus’ burgeoning army of vampires. This makes them fair game for silver bullets and sharpened stakes wherever they’re found. In response to the study, Alan Greenspan recommended garlic to futures traders as a sound investment this quarter.