holy croutons
It was Ash Wednesday in Dublin, Ireland where I was attending school for a semester in college and two of my Catholic friends had invited me to Mass. I’ve always been mystified by Catholic practices and was secretly jealous of all the folks who had already had ash smudged on their foreheads that morning, so I decided to go as a means to seek out adventure (it was a slow day). After all, I was attending a Catholic College (in Ireland… big surprise, I know…)
I filed into the red velvet covered pew between my two friends, Ania from Poland and Cecile, a fellow Coloradoan. I stood up when they did, sat down when they did, knelt and tried to mimic every hand gesture and obediently murmur every reply the congregation did. I’d be damned if I was going to let anyone in that church know I didn’t know what the heck what going on. And all in all, I thought I was doing a great job.
When time came for communion, I was swept away by the river of participants, stiffly filed after Ania and before Cecile. The nun blessed me as she dipped her finger in ash and schmeared a cross in the center of my forehead. I kept firm eye contact the whole time, determined to not give away my cluelessness. I crossed to the old Father, who gave me the body of Christ himself.
“Bless you, my child,” he croaked to me. “Thank you,” I replied, as if I had sneezed.
I wrapped my fingers around the little wafer and began to make the crowded walk back to my seat. Cecile rushed down the aisle after me and grabbed my arm.
“Have you taken your First Sacrament?” she whisper-hissed. My oblivious blank stare was enough of an answer. “Oh my god. You should not have even gone up there.”
I opened my mouth, desperately searching for a response and realizing I was totally in trouble. “Do not put that in your mouth, Elle. Do NOT.”
I could feel all the blood drain from my face. I sat through the rest of the sermon with my fingers delicately wrapped around the holy cracker, trying to softly balance it in a way that wouldn’t make it obvious that I was still harboring the body of sweet Jesus. I prayed to stop sweating, doing everything I could to try and keep the piece of peace from getting all soggy in my palm.
When the service finished with its ultimate Amen, I rushed out of the chapel as quickly as I could for fear of Cecile’s scolding. What was I supposed to do? I in no way had meant any disrespect to the ancient tradition – I had found the sacred ritual fascinating and really wanted to participate.
I could imagine walking back up to the priest; “Excuse me, Father. Um, hi. Hey, look, thank you so much for sharing the body of God’s only son with me but I can’t really accept this. See, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to take it… long story short, it’s really soggy and I wouldn’t recommend putting it back in the dish for the next mass, but I just wanted you to know I was completely clueless and shouldn’t have taken this. Oh hey, so do you need to wipe off the ash on my forehead now, too? Can we use holy water for that, or should I just go wash my face at home…?”
So I did what any good, God-fearing woman would do – avoided eye contact with everyone I passed on my way back to the dorm and locked myself in my bedroom, waiting to see if I would be smote down.
Until I remembered that I don’t fear God. I sat at my desk and placed the divine loaf in front of me. What was I supposed to do with this now? I certainly wasn’t going to eat it even in the privacy of my own room because now I feared showing some level of disrespect. And throwing it in the trash was absolutely out of the question – Maria, the surely Catholic housekeeper would surely recognize it when she came to clear the rubbish in the morning. It’d be the friggen Spanish inquisition.
I looked down at Jesus sitting on my desk. He looked up with me, curious to see my next move. Who could I call on in this, my time of need?
Then I remembered that my cousin had been on a wide-ranged spiritual search in her life. She was reading a number of religious texts, studying a number of spiritual practices… sure she’d know what to do about this whole ordeal.
So I packed Jesus up in the day before’s Irish Post and shipped him Par Avon across the Atlantic to Kansas City for my cousin to deal with.
Ultimately, life is not about the specific religious practices you subscribe to – but rather about those who support you completely in the search for your own heart… and the way you do the same for those you love.