"And All At Once I Lost My Breath..."
Oct. 16th, 2005 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psalm_onethirtyoneThis is what it is to be eucharistic minister:
If you have ever drunk out of a goblet before-- this is a chalice. You are holding a chalice, and it's heavy, it's gold. It's full of wine, it's bitter wine, very bitter. It's purple-red. It has a nasty smell. It's very ordinary wine, not very good even. You are in a church, up beside the altar, with the Communion rail between you and the congregation, which is people, which is thirty-odd people who are watching you. In this church, for these people, you are not holding a heavy chalice full of ordinary bitter wine. You are holding a chalice full of sacred bitter blood.
Maybe everybody doesn't believe that exactly, but a lot of them do. The children, who don't understand entirely, still understand that it is important. You know that it is important. You're dressed in your acolyte's vestments, because the eucharistic vestments don't fit you yet, you're not tall enough. A red cassock, a white surplice, a cross around your neck--but the cross is the eucharistic minister's cross, with a stained-glass picture of bread and wine on it, very small. When you get taller, you'll wear a black cassock. These things all mean something, they all mean something.
The priest is giving the bread, flat thin bits of bread that look like styrofoam poker chips with crosses on them. Some people eat them at once, some people save them. She says, the body of Christ, the bread of Heaven, when she gives it. If the children don't want to eat it, she makes a cross on their foreheads with her thumb. Then you come after, with this heavy chalice full of wine-blood, and you put it forward, and you tip it up first to a woman's mouth and she drinks and you say, the blood of Christ, the cup of Salvation, and then you take it back, wipe the rim with a white cloth, turn it one space to the right, and give it to the man next to her. He takes his bread and dips it in the wine. You still say the blessing. You do this for every one of these people, and they, most of them, are doing something holy, something truly important. You are giving these people the blood of Christ in a chalice, and it's bitter, and it smells bitter. You are serving people. You are giving them to drink.
There's one man who is Roman Catholic. You take his bread and dip it in the chalice yourself, and then put it in his mouth. You serve the children just as you serve the adults, but you have to bend your knees. You serve your parents, your mother and father, just the way you've served everyone else. You give the wine to people you know. They don't smile at you, some of them, because what you are doing is too important to them.
At the end, you pour the sanctified water in what wine is left, and, if you were older, you would drink it; but you're too young, so the acolyte, who is usually the lay minister, takes it and drinks it instead. You scrub out the inside of the chalice with the white cloth, and put it back on the altar.
It is the strangest thing you have ever done.
And that's why I want to go on being lay minister. It's so odd. It's-- I want to understand it better. It feels so sacred, but I don't think I believe it enough yet. I'm the lightest sort of Christian--I believe in things, but I don't go to church as often as I should, and I only believe the New Testament--I'm an acolyte and a lay minister, but I don't usually think about what I'm doing-- I don't know whether I'll ever feel about the wine the way some people do, but even I can feel that it's sacred. I'm going to do it again soon--I'm just interested.
But I promise, next time I do it, I won't dramatise it quite so much.
If you have ever drunk out of a goblet before-- this is a chalice. You are holding a chalice, and it's heavy, it's gold. It's full of wine, it's bitter wine, very bitter. It's purple-red. It has a nasty smell. It's very ordinary wine, not very good even. You are in a church, up beside the altar, with the Communion rail between you and the congregation, which is people, which is thirty-odd people who are watching you. In this church, for these people, you are not holding a heavy chalice full of ordinary bitter wine. You are holding a chalice full of sacred bitter blood.
Maybe everybody doesn't believe that exactly, but a lot of them do. The children, who don't understand entirely, still understand that it is important. You know that it is important. You're dressed in your acolyte's vestments, because the eucharistic vestments don't fit you yet, you're not tall enough. A red cassock, a white surplice, a cross around your neck--but the cross is the eucharistic minister's cross, with a stained-glass picture of bread and wine on it, very small. When you get taller, you'll wear a black cassock. These things all mean something, they all mean something.
The priest is giving the bread, flat thin bits of bread that look like styrofoam poker chips with crosses on them. Some people eat them at once, some people save them. She says, the body of Christ, the bread of Heaven, when she gives it. If the children don't want to eat it, she makes a cross on their foreheads with her thumb. Then you come after, with this heavy chalice full of wine-blood, and you put it forward, and you tip it up first to a woman's mouth and she drinks and you say, the blood of Christ, the cup of Salvation, and then you take it back, wipe the rim with a white cloth, turn it one space to the right, and give it to the man next to her. He takes his bread and dips it in the wine. You still say the blessing. You do this for every one of these people, and they, most of them, are doing something holy, something truly important. You are giving these people the blood of Christ in a chalice, and it's bitter, and it smells bitter. You are serving people. You are giving them to drink.
There's one man who is Roman Catholic. You take his bread and dip it in the chalice yourself, and then put it in his mouth. You serve the children just as you serve the adults, but you have to bend your knees. You serve your parents, your mother and father, just the way you've served everyone else. You give the wine to people you know. They don't smile at you, some of them, because what you are doing is too important to them.
At the end, you pour the sanctified water in what wine is left, and, if you were older, you would drink it; but you're too young, so the acolyte, who is usually the lay minister, takes it and drinks it instead. You scrub out the inside of the chalice with the white cloth, and put it back on the altar.
It is the strangest thing you have ever done.
And that's why I want to go on being lay minister. It's so odd. It's-- I want to understand it better. It feels so sacred, but I don't think I believe it enough yet. I'm the lightest sort of Christian--I believe in things, but I don't go to church as often as I should, and I only believe the New Testament--I'm an acolyte and a lay minister, but I don't usually think about what I'm doing-- I don't know whether I'll ever feel about the wine the way some people do, but even I can feel that it's sacred. I'm going to do it again soon--I'm just interested.
But I promise, next time I do it, I won't dramatise it quite so much.
