Forty years ago, on the 20th of July, 1969, our first astronauts landed on the moon.




(Armstrong, Collings, Aldrin)

What took place inside the lunar landing module as Armstrong took the first great step for humanity has been seldom reported, as a matter of fact kept silent for decades as the following account reveals...

liturgy nz blog

First Communion on the Moon
Published by Bosco Peters

On Sunday July 20, 1969 the first people landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were in the lunar lander which touched down at 3:17 Eastern Standard Time.

Buzz Aldrin had with him the Reserved Sacrament. He radioed: “Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way.”

Later he wrote: “In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.’ I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute Deke Slayton had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O’Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly…Eagle’s metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.”

NASA kept this secret for two decades. The memoirs of Buzz Aldrin and the Tom Hanks’s Emmy- winning HBO mini-series, From the Earth to the Moon (1998), made people aware of this act of Christian worship 235,000 miles from Earth....

Father, how gratifying and fitting that the first liquid poured on your moon was that simple unction and picture of the blood of your Dear Son.

The first morsel eaten, a tiny host, filled with the reminders of His broken body... for we... your broken people.

A generation has come and gone... and still we are broken... yes... more broken and divided than even then.

Rain on us light from that drifting orb.
Wash us in the river of life that flowed so gently over the sides of that fragile cup.

Fill us with the sacred hope of heavens compassion.

Kýrie, eléison.

XtnYoda, shalomed

H/T Deke