valid ID

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I attended the First Friday Mass last week. The priest, Fr Thor (St Therese of the Child Jesus Parish, Los Banos), began his homily about the Pharisees questioning Jesus' closeness to tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 9: 9-13) with a story about priests' bloopers on a trip.
Priests, from several nearby parishes, went to the airport. They were queueing at the check-in counter so one of the priests asked for the identification cards of his travel mates. One of the priests forgot his wallet, of all things; hence, he didn't have a single valid ID card on him. However, he did bring with him his SM Advantage Card.
The SM Advantage Card is a frequent shopper card at one of the biggest shopping mall chains in the Philippines, SM. It's definitely not an ID card normally presented at the airport; there, people normally show their driver's licenses or their passports.
The place they were going to did not even have an SM branch!
Since the priest had no other ID card on him at check-in, the other priest collected it anyway and placed it under the stack of IDs. He then passed the stack to the the check-in staff. This person checked the priests' IDs one by one. When it was the forgetful priest's turn, the check-in staff remarked,
"You won't earn shopping points here."
That story made the congregation laugh. It's a relief to listen to a priest who can laugh at himself and share his (or his group's) misadventures to the people from the pulpit. This behavior falls very far from the Padre Damaso stereotypes and the image of disciplinarian priests I've listened to as a child.

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