Communion - My preference

Today, we had communion at my church. We always have Communion the first Sunday of the month. Communion is special to me, for it is a reminder to remember...to remember Jesus' body was broken for me (us) and his blood spilled for me (us). We are a small group and as we are a new church, we do not yet have a kneeling alter, therefore, we take Communion by way of tincture. Each person approaches the alter, accepts a bit of bread, which represents the body of Christ, with hands folded in a cross. You are than offered the cup of wine (in our case, grape juice), which represents the blood of Christ, and you dunk your bit of bread into the cup. The other way of receiving the cup offering is each person receives their own individual 'cup' of the wine; little more than a thimble full. I find either of these methods acceptable, and this ritual is comforting to me.

I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to experience another form of Communion. I do not know what it is called. I can tell you though, it caused me much stress.

People who know me quite well know that I have a real phobia of eating or drinking after another person. The only people I can truly share a utensil or glass with are my husband, and my two daughters, Arthur and Courage. My Granny fell into this category too. I am so afraid I will catch a cold, the flu, or worse, herpes (cold sores). Ash Wednesday, two years ago, I could not find a church near my office that offered a noon-time Ash Wednesday service, so my boss, who is Episcopalian, invited me to go with him to his church for their service. I figured, Episcopalians are Christians too, how different can it be from what I am accustomed to? Wow! Was I in for a treat!

First of all, at the appointed time for the service to begin, the priest (or two) entered the worship area carrying a big stick of some sort, with a cloth covering the top of it. I soon found out this was the cross. It was uncovered and leaned against the wall behind the pulpit, where it appeared to be ready to slide over in the floor at any time. That was different. I also learned that the Episcopalians get a good work out during worship service. They are constantly getting up and down to kneel on a little bench that popped out from under the pew in front of us. I was pretty much able to follow along with the help of the program provided, but sometimes they would recite (scripture?) that was not in the program and it sounded like it was in another language, maybe Latin. And then it was time for communion.

We went, pew by pew, to the kneeling alter. I bowed my head and folded my hands to form a cross. It was taking awhile so I peeked. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, so I peeked again. At this point I realized what was going on. The first priest came along with the bread-like wafers, placed it on the tongue of the opened mouth, (think baby birds), and the second priest had a cup. Wait! I think. The wafer is in the mouth. How do they dip the wafer? I watch and then see the cup was brought up and pressed to their lips. The priest holding the cup then put a cloth to the cup and pressing the cup along the rim, giving the cup a quarter turn. (Audible gasp) EVERYONE WAS DRINKING FROM THE SAME CUP!!!!!!!!! These were people I had never laid eyes on before in my entire life, and I was going to drink from the same up that two dozen people had already drank from? I was no longer peeking. I was staring wide-eyed in horror!

Beads of sweat developed on my brow and my arm pits immediately felt sticky and wet. My stomach felt sick. I seriously thought about putting up my hand and passing on the cup, until I actually saw someone do just that, and then the horror of it sank in; she had just rejected Christ's blood! I resigned myself to drink from the cup. I tried to reason that probably not one of the two dozen or so people before me had a serious disease or illness that could be passed from a minute droplet of saliva that could possibly be left on the rim of the cup after the swipe or back washed into the cup. Okay, when I thought of backwash, I again became physically ill. But this cup represented the blood Jesus' shed for me. I can endure this, I thought. But, I felt faint. All of these realizations and thoughts all occurred in less than a minute and the person next to me coughed right before the cup came to him. (He did turn his head). It was my turn. I accepted my wafer and felt it on my tongue. Then the cup came up to my lips and I drank. I watched the hand move the white cloth over the rim where my lips had touched. And then the cup was going up to my boss's mouth. I didn't faint. I closed my eyes as the ash was placed on my forehead.

After I returned to my pew, I realized the grape juice wasn't grape juice. It was wine. Real wine! Cool!

No, I did not get a bad cold or the flu. And to this day no cold sores have appeared. But I assure you, individual cups are my first choice for receiving Communion. Tincture is my second choice. But if it were only offered in a communal cup, I'd survive it. Especially if it were real wine in the cup. (Maybe the alcohol in the wine helped sanitize????)

I saw a church sign that read: 'Jesus gave His life for us. The least we can do is live our life for Him.' I agree.