A memo was recently sent to priests in the Diocese of Westminster, which warned of the spread of the swine flu virus through the act of holy communion, citing, “the risk of contaminating the minister’s hands and chalice during communion with respiratory secretions and passing these on directly into other peoples’ mouths.”
This has me worried. If priests and parishoners are passing the h1n1 swine flu virus back and forth to each other through the wafer and wine of the communion ritual, that’s dangerous enough for them. However, no one seems to be considering the risk to Jesus!
After all, through the ritual of communion, the wafer becomes the body of Jesus, and the wine becomes the blood of Jesus. If someone infected with h1n1 were to take part in communion, they could smear swine flu all over Jesus’s body and pass the virus directly into Jesus’s bloodstream.
In these circumstances, the continuation of communion could prove to be the death of Jesus! What can we do to stop this disaster?
- Bennie
Bennie,
While I share some of your concerns, I think that it is important to remember that Jesus is already dead. However, that doesn’t mean that he can’t get a nasty case of the sniffles.
So, I suggest that all parishoners sip some cold and cough syrup before they take part in communion. Some of the medicine will enter the blood of Jesus by way of backwash, and dull the symptoms of swine flu.
- God
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