When driving from Jenn's funeral to the reception, my mother in law shared that the priest who handed her the host, the body of Christ had just wiped his nose beforehand. Not wanting to risk H1N1 and given no choice to refuse as the priest walked over to the front pew and handed out the host to Daryyl and the kids (all Catholics) as well as my mother in law (unenrolled). She didn't know exactly what to do she said, she saw her grandchildren placing the wafer in their mouths, not wanting the germ laden albeit living bread, she tucked it in her purse.
I couldn't believe this as she was telling it....."where is it now?" barely able to contain my myself, images of my Baltimore Catholicism urban legends of hosts turning to blood, priests having to burn carpet when a host fell to the sacristy floor and my favorite a host caught in a chiffon scarf which also had to be burned as well as the neck of the now scarf less catholic lay woman washed with holy water. This was serious stuff. It frightened and fascinated me then, the echo of that still reverberates now.
And now here I am driving in car with the host in my mother in law's purse. I ask her for it thinking I can dispose of it in a way that will not get us all sent to hell. Despite having not practised my religion of my upbringing for quite sometime, I feel this is something I must do. It provides me with distraction We get to the hall and not only cannot I not find a priest but Donna can't find the host. Perhaps it has already turned to blood and sank to the bottom of her pocketbook. It bothers me still, but she doesn't want to look for it and I don't want to push it.
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