Because of my long involvement with the über-ultra-hyper secret Vatican Vampire Assassin Squad (and I can’t tell you who is assassinating whom!), I was intrigued by the photo sent me by a priest friend of a vampire hunters kit!
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Love this…Happy New Year, Fr. Z. I hope someone sends you something like this.
Father Z,
I was going to say this could not possibly be the current issue for such an elite congregation. Then I remembered your frequent recitation of the Vatican Motto: “YESTERDAYS TECHNOLOGY TOMORROW” and I fear that I am wrong.
Continue to have a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year Father,
fxr2
Fr. Z,
I don’t think you need the whole kit, just some silver bullets.
Wishing you a Happy and Blessed New Year! [Bullseye. I should keep at least one in each mag of self-defense rounds.]
Wait for a complete set to come on the market; this one is missing the mirror. How will you find vampires if you can’t effectively test the “no reflexion” vampire paradigm?
–Guy
[Good point.]
Is that holy salt in the bottles?
Do I see the Book of Common Prayer in the vampire hunter’s set? Tsk tsk tsk. This is obviously a child’s toy set. No vampire would flee from Cranmer…or at least not before the recent readjustments in the C of E allegiances.
Fr Z, would the Personal Ordinariate make the C of E junior vampire hunters’ kit effective?
[Look on the bright side. They might actually be attracted by the obsolete ICEL versions of the prayers. “O God, you are so lucky that we came today. You are so big. We can do this on our own, help us not to be stiff-necked during our dialogue with undead sisters and brothers.]
Scott W sez: Is that holy salt in the bottles?
Perhaps. I thought it might be diced garlic and some wolfbane.
One can never have too many crucifixes.
I don’t get it (sorry). We don’t really believe in vampires do we?
Silver bullets are useless on vampires, werewolves, now that’s another story. Decapitation works on vamps pretty well, in addition to the old standard “stake-thru-the-chest.”
FWIW, did you know in Bram Stoker’s original novel Dracula, the vampire is finally killed by an American cowboy, Quincy Morris, with a Bowie knife???
Too cool….
Don’t be fooled by imitators! Vampire killing kits are faked all the time. The “real” kits from the 1800’s were attributed to Ernst Blomberg and the cruciform pistol that Blomberg supplied with his kits were made for him by Plomdeur. But I think part of the mystery is that no one even knows for sure if Blomberg and Plomdeur were fake. But the Blomberg kit with Plomdeur pistols are the ones that fetch several thousand a pop at high end auctions – which is why they are counterfeited and sold on ebay pretty regularly.
Still, if it weren’t a sin to sell blessed sacramentals, it might be a cool way to evangelize. Sell reproduction vampire kits loaded with blessed salt, latin/english breviaries and bibles, crucifix, and anything else time-honored and Catholic that one could think to include. With vampires all the rage these days, you’d have sacramentals in every home in no time flat, with curious people trying to figure out what to do with them.
yatzer,
Interestingly, Monsignor Knox renders “vampire” in Isaiah 34:14 where the Vulgate has “lamia” – but he also provides a note about uncertainties in verses 11-15 (New Advent Bible).
It would seem there may be people who believe themselves to be vampires and there are people who consider themselves vampires – and so can or do behave ‘vampiristically’ – as well as living folk-belief in vampires (see the English Wikipedia articles on “Clinical vampirism”, “Vampire lifestyle”, and “Vampire”, respectively). Any use of weapons would surely have to meet normal legal self-defense requirements.
scarda, I find it hard to believe the set includes a book of Common Prayer, for one thing the set also includes the Sacred Heart of Jesus image, not common amongst Anglicans unless they are of the super-high church Anglo Catholic mentality maybe. Although I seem to recall the prayers in the BCP to actually be better translations than the obsolete ICEL: “Lord you are nice. Help us to be nice too”.
Google images shows many such kits, including this. The Common Prayer (1912) does not mention vampires, undead, “evil spirit”, or exorcism. But it has the prayer “that those evils, which the craft and subtilty of the devil or man worketh against us, be brought to nought”.
In passing I note:… it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church, that inquiry be made of evil Ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally being found guilty, by just judgement, be deposed.
Way to use the spoiler alert, The Astronomer!