Today was my brother's confirmation.
My family made up three pews in the cathedral.
Row One: Myself (Gay), My Mom (Divorced), Stepdad (Divorced), My Other Brother (Child of Two Divorced People)
Row Two: My Uncle (Felon), My Cousin (Free of Sin--Bitch), My Grandmother (Twice Divorced--Double the Sin)
Row Three: My Other Cousin (Pre-marital sex--and lots of it), My Uncle (Infidelity) and My Aunt (Episcopalian--Need I Say More?)
So there we all are--nobody planning to get communion.
Why, you may ask, does a family like this force one of its own to be confirmed in the Catholic church anyway?
Because like any good lapsed Catholic family, we're still terrified of the things we don't believe in, and we love an excuse to party on a Sunday afternoon.
Nevertheless, I repeat, nobody was going to get communion.
It's a simple enough thing to avoid.
When everyone else stands up and forms that giant line, you just sit where you are, and keep your eyes peeled on whatever stained glass window has the best story.
(My favorite involves anything with women crying while an angel floats overhead while looking like he's tsk tsk-ing them.)
And that's what I was planning on doing when one of the priests walked halfway up the aisle, a few pews away from where my family was sitting.
That's when it hit me--
The cathedral is so big, they were splitting it in half and giving the communion in four different sections.
Now, my family and I still could have dodged the bullet, but then something insane happened.
Each pew got up one at a time.
That meant when the time came for our three rows to get up, my free-of-sin cousin might be partaking in the body of the Savior but the rest of us would be getting a nasty look from the priest.
I turned to my mother--
"Ma, we have to get communion."
"I can't!"
"We have to! We can't embarrass ourselves. The priest is looking right at us."
"But--"
"They're one row away. Just act natural and follow my lead."
"This is wrong!"
"Oh, come on! We're going to ask for forgiveness afterwards anyway."
I was on the aisle, so everybody followed my lead.
It had been so long since I got communion that a part of me wondered if there was some special thing you were supposed to say that I was forgetting.
Did you say "Thank you?"
"Thanks" maybe?
A polite nod and a wink?
Instead, I just walked quickly back to my seat--on the way, I passed my twice-divorced grandmother smiling gleefully.
She was clearly enjoying the fact that she was going to be ingesting illegal communion.
I, however, felt like I had a red hot coal shoved in my mother.
My newly confirmed brother was sitting at the front of the cathedral, and when he looked back and saw his fallen family standing in line for communion, he started shaking his head and mouthing the word--
"Noooo!"
--Much like Edvard Munch's "The Scream."
Afterwards, at the confirmation dinner, we were all still talking about communion experience like we were drug mules who managed to cross the border without getting caught.
My grandmother was still giggly.
"I thought he was going to say something. I really did. Ooooh, that would have been something!"
I didn't say anything, but not only did I receive the communion, I scraped it off the roof of my mouth with my tongue rather than let it dissolve like it's supposed to, because it was drying out my mouth so badly I was ready to ask for wine to go with it.
If there's a Hell, that little tongue maneuver is probably going to get me a couple extra lashes from Satan's minions.
Finally, not being able to bear it any longer, I asked my mom--
"Did you let the communion dissolve like you're supposed to?"
She looked at me funny, then said--
"No, I just swallowed it whole."
Swallowed it whole?!?!?!
I shook my head, and tsk tsk-ed her, just like the angels.
"Wow, Mom," I said, "You're definitely going to burn."
My family made up three pews in the cathedral.
Row One: Myself (Gay), My Mom (Divorced), Stepdad (Divorced), My Other Brother (Child of Two Divorced People)
Row Two: My Uncle (Felon), My Cousin (Free of Sin--Bitch), My Grandmother (Twice Divorced--Double the Sin)
Row Three: My Other Cousin (Pre-marital sex--and lots of it), My Uncle (Infidelity) and My Aunt (Episcopalian--Need I Say More?)
So there we all are--nobody planning to get communion.
Why, you may ask, does a family like this force one of its own to be confirmed in the Catholic church anyway?
Because like any good lapsed Catholic family, we're still terrified of the things we don't believe in, and we love an excuse to party on a Sunday afternoon.
Nevertheless, I repeat, nobody was going to get communion.
It's a simple enough thing to avoid.
When everyone else stands up and forms that giant line, you just sit where you are, and keep your eyes peeled on whatever stained glass window has the best story.
(My favorite involves anything with women crying while an angel floats overhead while looking like he's tsk tsk-ing them.)
And that's what I was planning on doing when one of the priests walked halfway up the aisle, a few pews away from where my family was sitting.
That's when it hit me--
The cathedral is so big, they were splitting it in half and giving the communion in four different sections.
Now, my family and I still could have dodged the bullet, but then something insane happened.
Each pew got up one at a time.
That meant when the time came for our three rows to get up, my free-of-sin cousin might be partaking in the body of the Savior but the rest of us would be getting a nasty look from the priest.
I turned to my mother--
"Ma, we have to get communion."
"I can't!"
"We have to! We can't embarrass ourselves. The priest is looking right at us."
"But--"
"They're one row away. Just act natural and follow my lead."
"This is wrong!"
"Oh, come on! We're going to ask for forgiveness afterwards anyway."
I was on the aisle, so everybody followed my lead.
It had been so long since I got communion that a part of me wondered if there was some special thing you were supposed to say that I was forgetting.
Did you say "Thank you?"
"Thanks" maybe?
A polite nod and a wink?
Instead, I just walked quickly back to my seat--on the way, I passed my twice-divorced grandmother smiling gleefully.
She was clearly enjoying the fact that she was going to be ingesting illegal communion.
I, however, felt like I had a red hot coal shoved in my mother.
My newly confirmed brother was sitting at the front of the cathedral, and when he looked back and saw his fallen family standing in line for communion, he started shaking his head and mouthing the word--
"Noooo!"
--Much like Edvard Munch's "The Scream."
Afterwards, at the confirmation dinner, we were all still talking about communion experience like we were drug mules who managed to cross the border without getting caught.
My grandmother was still giggly.
"I thought he was going to say something. I really did. Ooooh, that would have been something!"
I didn't say anything, but not only did I receive the communion, I scraped it off the roof of my mouth with my tongue rather than let it dissolve like it's supposed to, because it was drying out my mouth so badly I was ready to ask for wine to go with it.
If there's a Hell, that little tongue maneuver is probably going to get me a couple extra lashes from Satan's minions.
Finally, not being able to bear it any longer, I asked my mom--
"Did you let the communion dissolve like you're supposed to?"
She looked at me funny, then said--
"No, I just swallowed it whole."
Swallowed it whole?!?!?!
I shook my head, and tsk tsk-ed her, just like the angels.
"Wow, Mom," I said, "You're definitely going to burn."
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