A good friend of mine a while ago asked me to her small catholic church in the mountains.
It was my first ever mass attendance, so I didn't have much of a clue about the protocol,
although she was aware that I knew the ropes in a protestant church, so couldn't be an embarrassment.
Uh uh. She made me follow and take the sacraments.
I didn't open my mouth (the priest's fingers had been in all the other mouths), so he put a wafer in my hand.
Being very polite, I held onto it until after the wine so as not to accidentally drop it into the cup.
Then I was dug in the ribs and whispered to about swallowing the wafer, and proper etiquette.
That was when I dropped the wafer on the floor, bent down and picked it up, being whispered to, again,
something about hell-fire and swallowing the damm thing.
So, I dutifully swallowed. Then I looked at the front pew, and a little old lady staring at me with the sort
of look one might give a gate-crashing mufti.
Funny how one can try to please, and still offend the upright and moral.
I guess, to some people, the moral thing is more important.
Which ties in with the smothering of the baby.
They didn't offer me a cup of tea. And I was never invited again.
Rob