Word: communion
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Desserts in my family have always been a reward or an unexpected present, reserved for occasional weekend nights and special celebrations. For my First Communion I had a decadent chocolate cake from Alden Merrill. The physical bread meant little to me, the sour-smelling wine even less, when compared to the stunningly sweet pastel packaged neatly in a cardboard box and stored safely in the basement refrigerator. I can still picture myself carving into the smooth fudge that formed the outer layer of the cake. The contrast between my crisp white dress, with its eyelet detail and simple lace ribbons...
...first 11 centuries of the church's existence, and was imposed primarily to rescue the church from the corruption of priests bequeathing church property to their heirs. Several past Popes have been married. Mandatory celibacy does not exist in the Eastern Orthodox church, which is formally in communion with Rome. Former Anglican priests who have converted to Roman Catholicism are allowed to function as priests while staying married. As with most Catholic administrative matters, exceptions are made. So why cannot one be made now, where the church is faced with the greatest threat to vocations in its history...
Those who say the church can never change are simply wrong. It has always been pragmatic about the nonessentials, accommodating itself to new cultures, to old customs and to social change. It once conducted Masses solely in Latin; now it doesn't. Communion was once dispensed solely by the priest; now lay people can distribute it. Even some of the deepest and oldest rituals in Catholic life--like the Easter Vigil ceremony--were imported in part from pagan rituals. In Africa and Asia, all kinds of cultural accommodations are made to bring the faith across cultures and into people...
...memorable tableaus occurs on a trip to church, where everything manages to go wrong and yet be beautifully right. The priest delivers an archaic sermon filled with melodramatic images of good versus evil, when the altar boy accidentally steps in front of three powerful electric fans, sending the Communion wafers in his hands flying. As Hank recounts: “Poor old Harvey! Good old Mr. Finks! In St. George’s Church, Garrison Road, Owings Mills, Maryland that Sunday in July, we were all dodging wafers while fighting the temptation of the devil. It was rich...
...relationship with a trusted priest that Martinelli expected. On a Washington field trip, Father Brett allegedly fondled young Frank in a bathroom. Martinelli claims that while Brett was driving him home, the priest urged the boy to give him oral sex, blessing it as a way to receive Holy Communion. Like most youngsters 30 years ago, Frank was too ashamed, too scared, too uncomprehending ever to say a word...