Communion

Nigerian-born author and Jesuit priest Uwem Akpan (pictured below) wrote for The New Yorker of his experience in trying to shake off two boys begging for food before going to the mass. Then inviting the boys inside, "hoping that they would shake their heads and withdraw..." They accepted the invitation into the large church. He goes on to write,

I handed my furled umbrella to one of the boys so that I could hold their hands to control them. We walked up the central aisle to join the sparse congregation that ringed the sanctuary, the big Guadalupe mural looming beyond the altar. Suddenly, they scrambled out of my grasp. When I looked back during the first reading, I spotted the crooks sitting on a pew, playing with the umbrella. I was beginning to get angry. If they ran off with my umbrella, how would I get home? Throughout the readings and homily and the Offertory and Consecration, the kids chatted away. I could see their mouths, wide open, moving in never-ending prattle.

As I walked back to my seat after receiving Communion, I was unsettled to see that they had slipped into the line going up the aisle. They were very quiet now, their gaze fixed on the golden ciborium as the priest took out the wafer to place on the tongues of the faithful. Occasionally, the boys glanced at the other children in the line and copied their gestures, joining their palms together, bowing their heads. Then they would watch intently the mouth of someone who had just received. Fear gripped my heart—fear that some churchwarden would be incensed by their sacrilege and, as in the church of my youth, drag them outside by the ear; fear that the priest would deny them at the last moment; fear that I might never risk as much for the Body of Christ. I held my breath, already feeling guilty that I had set them up for a possible fall.

As soon as the two boys had received Communion and turned away from the priest, they chewed hastily, with exaggerated movements, their mouths like the mandibles of a spider devouring an insect. Then they lost their composure and hurried out excitedly. After Mass, they returned my umbrella.

The full text of the article is online here: Faith and Doubt: Communion. Fr. Akpan is the author of the acclaimed Say You're One of Them.

Today's religion column for the Tribune & Georgian is online here: A Prescription for Anxiety.