Dirty Bread for All

Last weekend after we sat down in our pew at mass an usher asked Robbie if our family would present the gifts.  After the collections basket is passed, a family carries the water, wine, Eucharistic hosts/bread, and money in a basket to the priest at the front altar.  This used to create unimagineable anxiety for us as parents of toddlers.  Each child wanted to hold something made of crystal containing wine or filled with the bread of Christ.  However, now that the youngest Overlease is five years old, our worries are few.   The children really enjoy this ministry.

We took our places at the back of the church and each child was given something to carry.  As we neared Fr. Storey,  our new pastor, Henry tilted the gold dish of hosts, and the big one that the priest using during the consecration of the gifts tumbled (in what seemed like freeze frame slow motion!!) to the ground.  Before Robbie or I could do a thing, our quick thinking young son snatched it up and put it back into the dish with all of the other small, clean ones.  I was mortified.  We were kind of in the spotlight, as the saying goes, and it was not a good moment in time.  Fr. Storey took it with a grain of salt and a chuckle and told us not to worry about it.  I think he even made a little joke, but it was lost on me in my state of stress.  The big girls realized Henry's error, but Henry seemed to wonder what in the world was wrong with Mommy and Daddy for worrying so much.  Afterall, he picked up what he spilled!  Once back in our seats, I whispered that if the bread ever spills again, he should pick it up and hand it to the priest separately.  Yet again, this story falls into the category of things that I never thought to tell my children not to do.