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
]]>I was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. When I asked my oncologist what could be done, he just said, “Nothing.” I asked him how he knew there was nothing to be done, how he could give up without trying. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room. I had to get dressed and walk myself back out to the front office and pay for the visit without anything more than that.
What am I supposed to do now?
- Barry
Barry,
There is nothing that you’re supposed to do. You have stepped outside of the realm of supposition and social order. You have a fatal illness, and the medical profession appears to have abandoned you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re already dead.
You can go to another doctor, of course, and see if you’ll get another opinion. You might not get another opinion, however. You might just get another oncologist who gives you the same opinion, although it’s delivered in a less brutal form.
More fundamentally, you have to deal with the crisis that all people will have to deal with, although most people forget about it. You are going to die. Maybe you won’t die today, or tomorrow, or this week, or this year, but you will die eventually. There is no cure for mortality.
Why must it be this way? Well, actually it doesn’t have to be this way at all. Human beings could be immortal, if I chose to allow it. However, I chose to create people as mortal beings. That way, there would be more turnover, and more interesting plot developments in the soap operas.
Don’t blame your oncologist for it. Blame me.
- God
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