The Sunday Memory Drawer - Holy Communion

Here you go. Mom, Dad, and some dork in a robe that happens to be me on my confirmation day. Three people squinting wildly in the hot sun of a May Sunday afternoon. Not a smile in the bunch. It's about one hour after I first sampled the body and blood of Christ and I am guessing that the cardboard wafer is probably still stuck on my braces.
I remember this day vividly. I couldn't wait for it to be over. I had endured two years of Saturday morning religious instruction, made palatable only because my very first girlfriend was in the class with me. And it culminated in this afternoon, where my mind was drifting to the Met doubleheader on TV in the house. Lots of relatives afoot drinking and eating and smoking. And a stack of envelopes containing twenty dollar bills. My just reward for swallowing a paper tablet and some Gallo wine.
Unlike my Catholic chums up the block, us Lutherans were time-efficient and lumped the first Holy Communion and Confirmation into one single event. My mother used to quip that the Catholic kids were way too young to appreciate the sacraments at the age of 7. As for me, if it meant another afternoon filled with envelopes of twenty dollar bills, I would be a buyer for that religion. Because, as much as I dreaded the prospects of putting that wafer in my mouth, it turned out to be not so bad. And I got used to it all pretty darn quickly.
All through high school, I would receive Holy Communion on the first Sunday of the month. That wasn't me being obsessive compulsive. That was the only Sunday in the month that St. Peter's Lutheran Church on East 219th Street in the Bronx would offer it. But, I welcomed it as I began to understand the meaning behind it all and, for some mystical reason, I took it pretty seriously. Then, they changed pastors and I went to college. Wafers and wine were replaced by pretzels and 25 cent bottles of beer on the Fordham campus.
It wouldn't be until I returned to church when I moved to Los Angeles that I would again receive communion in a Lutheran church. And, years later, I found that the cardboard cookie had been replaced (at least at my church) by real challah bread. You actually felt like you were breaking bread as you are handed a morsel to dunk into the cabernet. I know the exact brand because I am the one at my church who buys the actual sacraments at Ralph's Supermarket every Saturday.
But, in the long interim between these blessings, there would be only one other time where communion almost filtered back into my world. In a Catholic church, of all places. The story, as I relate it, is not written to do any religion bashing or indict any particular clergy. But, it does illuminate how deeply seeded your childhood religious upbringing can be.
A few years after college, I was asked to be an usher for two Fordham friends who were taking the marital plunge. (They have since toweled off and left the pool permanently) Now, if you really want to piss me off, ask me to be an usher in your wedding party. Being the best man is impressive. I've been accorded that honor twice in my life. But, there is no other meaningless role than an usher at a wedding. Yo, Aunt Marge, you can find your own seat. It's a freakin' church. The closer you are, the better the view. Pure and simple. Essentially, what the groom is saying is that you are a close friend, but not the closest. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't need it, especially if I'm required to shove some portly bridesmaid around the dance floor to the strains of "Color My World." But, I digress...
I was asked to be an usher and I regrettably accepted. Comes the wedding day in Fordham University's Catholic chapel, I learn that the wedding will be officiated by two of the bride's relatives---a couple of ancient priests who might have seen the raising of Lazarus from the dead in person. These two fathers were the addled and scrambled types who hadn't opened their rectory windows since I Love Lucy was first run. And, since they didn't get out much except for bingo and Irish wakes, they were still under the misguided delusion that everybody in the world was Catholic. Well, indeed, in this wedding party, they probably were all Catholic. Except for me, the stalwart Protestant.
In what was an incredibly annoying wedding mass (the bride stood at some virginal statue for about two hours), I still managed to do all the kneeling at the most appropriate times. But, then, the two priests started to mess with the chalice and that dish where they keep the cardboard wafers. And they moved to approach where the wedding party was kneeling. I turned to another friend who was the usher beside me.
"What are they going to do now?"
My friend whispered, "They're gonna give us communion."
Huh? I poked him in the arm.
"I'm not Catholic."
My friend was no help. "Just take it. It's all the same thing."
It's all the same thing? It's all the same thing?? I thought about this. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that the wine and the wafer is the same in one Christian church as it is in the next. Probably purchased in the same church supply store on Katonah Avenue in the Bronx. But, I thought about my own religious background. The two years of Saturday indoctrination in the Lutheran faith leading up to the very first time I would receive communion. On the day of the picture heralding this entry. I thought about my parents and my childhood church and the fact that I had not gone for communion in my own faith for some time.
Nope, it wasn't the same. Not hardly. I would not take this blessing today. I had made my choice.
Getting the clergy in residence to accept that decision was another matter. The first fossil, Father Porcelana, held the wafer up in front of my mouth. I grunted as quietly as I could.
"No, thank you."
He stayed motionless. Holding the wafer in front of me as if I was a beagle being asked to sit up and beg for a Milk Bone treat. He stood there for a minute that felt like ten. When he finally got the notion that this was a religious staredown, he moved on. Then, on came Father Metamucil with the chalice of wine. In his moth ball reeking robes, he had witnessed none of the other drama that had just befallen me.
"The blood of Christ..."
It was eternity and we might have witnessed the second coming. He held the wine to my mouth. I looked at him as if he was crazy. And perhaps he was. At last, he moved on to the next person he would drip on.
Yeah, it's the same thing. But, somehow, it's different. For me, it's incredibly personal. As it should be.
Dinner last night: Eggplant parmagiana at Miceli's prior to the Egyptian Theater showing of the classic western, "Gunfight at the OK Corral."