Five Quarts_ A Personal and Natural History of Blood - Bill Hayes [31]
I am twelve years old and walk three steps behind Dad as we enter St. Augustine’s dim sacristy, dipping our fingers into the font of holy water. I hang up my coat and pull the blousy black-and-white cassock on over my clothes. Dad scans the Bible readings and speaks with Father Austen, who responds to his polite, whispered chitchat in a gravelly roar. I light the altar candles and pour water and wine into glass cruets, which I’ll later have to carry—don’t spill, don’t clink, don’t trip, don’t drop—in the processional, a three-man parade (Father, Dad, and Boy) from the sacristy, into the foyer, down the side aisle to the front of the church, then up the main aisle to the altar. It is all quite showy considering that there are no more than two dozen of the devoted looking on—a huddle of nuns, a sprinkling of old people, and there, in the third pew, Shannon.
I am here for one reason: because Dad says so. Though not yet a disbeliever, I am skeptical. I’ve glimpsed too many of the goings-on behind the velvet curtain. Shannon, by contrast, attends Mass out of fascination. This difference in perspective is never clearer than during the hushed moment at the heart of the Mass when bread and wine become Christ’s flesh and blood, the miracle of transubstantiation. From my vantage point, kneeling at Father Austen’s feet on the right side of the altar, I can easily see Shannon’s face. Her look is always the same, an expression of awe. When Father Austen holds aloft the Communion wafer in the consecration of the host, she is wholly enrapt in this retelling of the Last Supper, as if hearing it for the first time. I, on the other hand, can’t help thinking of the cellophane bag in which a hundred hosts came packed, like potato chips. On autopilot, I ring the altar bell three times. Next, when Father Austen raises the chalice of amber wine, I see only the gallon jug from which it had been poured, stored under the sacristy sink, and can already smell the sourness that will later be on his breath. Again, the altar bell. In the quiet that follows, I watch Shannon, whose head is dipped, fingers pressed in prayer. She looks like she’s captured a firefly in her hands and peeks to see its light.
The wine will not be offered to parishioners to drink, in part for simplicity’s sake, I suppose, but also because Christ’s blood already exists in the Eucharist, just as blood is present in human flesh. After taking a host himself, Father Austen places one on my tongue, where it is left to melt—never to be chewed—and I follow him to the altar rail. It’s my job to hold both the basket of hosts and the long-handled golden paten under each recipient’s chin, lest a host should fall. But don’t even think it! A host must never touch the ground. Wafer catching involves keeping your eye on parishioners’ tongues—gray-red, stubbled pelts, mostly, shooting out on waves of bad morning breath—a nauseating task on an empty stomach. To me, the sacrament of Communion means that Mass is almost over. To Shannon, second in line behind Pete the usher, it signifies far more. Her tongue slides under the chain-link fencing of her metal braces, and I momentarily meet her gaze.
“This is the body of Christ,” pronounces Father Austen.
“Amen,” she returns. In Shannon’s flushed, avid face, I see gladness, as she is united with the Son of God.
I couldn’t help but smile at her joy, though at the time I didn’t fully understand it. She drew from a depth of feeling that I’d yet to form about anything. In this respect, she was far beyond me. The girl born backward had pulled ahead, and I couldn’t have been happier for her.
In addition to attending daily and Sunday services,