I grew up Catholic. Went to Catholic school. Now teach at one. I've had communion a lot of times in my life and it has ALWAYS been aggressively stale. You'd think just by law of averages that I'd have gotten a fresh one at SOME point.
The only time I have ever been in religious institutions outside of when I coached basketball was in a college class called World Religions where we visited a different one every other week. The Hindu one was the best because they forced us to take our shoes off. The Catholic one just yelled at us. They had wiccans come to our class but they didn't seem fun.
I took a similar world religions class and went to a Buddhist service and didn't realize while meditating that my foot had fallen completely asleep. When I stood up at the end and tried to walk I damn near broke my ankle. Got a few days' limp in addition to some inner peace.
I did it for a few years but the amount of hours you had to put in versus the stipend was not worth it. I was able to get the same money hosting a Dungeons and Dragons club.
I took one as well and went to a Russian orthodox church and sat in on the kids meeting and they read them a very scary story about a porcupine
Mosques make you take off your shoes too. I have heard Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs say the shoe thing is a problem because people steal your shoes from the cubbies they have all the time. A lot people just leave them in their car and go in shoeless to prevent them from being stolen.
We went to a mosque too but they lost points for separating the genders. I don't allow shoes in my home at all and I'd ban them in my class if I could.
I was raised Catholic and the first time I took communion I tried to keep it cause I wanted to look at it more and see what the deal was, but they caught me and made me take it. My friends growing up went to more fun churches with more upbeat songs and a friendlier vibe but it was so odd to me that it came across cultish. First time I ever had wine was at the Catholic Church too and it was nasty and I hate wine to this day, so they did their part to keep the youths from enjoying alcohol I guess.
Raised catholic and went to catholic school. Do they still wait in line for the wine? Just an old cloth to wipe after every pair of lips? Post Covid seems very gross
I’m from the Protestant end of the Christian spectrum, but I know you can get prepackaged individual communion things. The wafer in the lid, then you tear the second layer off for the juice. Dunno how bad that is from a Roman Catholic perspective. When I used to do summer church camp shit, I wanted to do communion with completely different elements, like milk and cookies, or meatloaf as the body. And the guy I was planning with was like, no, we are NOT doing that.
Grew up catholic and one time after getting communion my dad leaned over to my brother and I and said “Oreos are way better” and we laughed so loud my mom was very pissed off and embarrassed.
It has always been interesting to me how Catholics are the only ones(?) who believe that communion literally is the body and blood of Christ. Church was always boring to me but we found a Catholic Church that had a rock band which was a lot more fun than just some person playing the organ
I was pretty baffled when I first learned about this. I know more fundamentalist/conservative faiths tend to struggle with metaphor, but come on, lol.
I am surprised how many of you went to church. I didn't think people went anymore except for the one megachurch that blocks traffic on Sunday mornings.