Most Hygienic Mass EVER!
So....I went to Mass today. (yeah yeah yeah, I know...) And it turned out to be a wedding. (Go figure, but I digress.)
A little background information: receiving the Eucharist in your hands is unheard of in Mexico. (They will do it if you ask, but you get all sorts of funny looks - "What are you - Protestant?" However, with H1N1 running about, the Catholic Church of Mexico has decided that some small things need to change.
Before the Sign of Peace, the priest says that like Jesus, influenza is alive and among us. He gave the entire congregation a lesson on how to receive Communion in their hand - "mano izquierdo, toma con la mano derecho". (Which was funny enough.) But I followed a 10-year-old girl up to receive, and when she got to the front, she automatically opened her mouth. "With your hands," the Eucharistic minister had to remind her, and she just looked at him. "Mano izquierdo, toma con la mano derecho". So she stuck out her left hand, and he placed the host in it, and then she looked at him like, no what? I just had to laugh.
The priest also recommended we have a "healthy peace", so nobody in the congregation shook hands - just nodded. The 7-year-old next to me bowed at the waist to me.
I also had never seen that many bottles of hand sanitizer in a church before. Only in Mexico....
A little background information: receiving the Eucharist in your hands is unheard of in Mexico. (They will do it if you ask, but you get all sorts of funny looks - "What are you - Protestant?" However, with H1N1 running about, the Catholic Church of Mexico has decided that some small things need to change.
Before the Sign of Peace, the priest says that like Jesus, influenza is alive and among us. He gave the entire congregation a lesson on how to receive Communion in their hand - "mano izquierdo, toma con la mano derecho". (Which was funny enough.) But I followed a 10-year-old girl up to receive, and when she got to the front, she automatically opened her mouth. "With your hands," the Eucharistic minister had to remind her, and she just looked at him. "Mano izquierdo, toma con la mano derecho". So she stuck out her left hand, and he placed the host in it, and then she looked at him like, no what? I just had to laugh.
The priest also recommended we have a "healthy peace", so nobody in the congregation shook hands - just nodded. The 7-year-old next to me bowed at the waist to me.
I also had never seen that many bottles of hand sanitizer in a church before. Only in Mexico....