“On Abstaining from Communion”: Poignant, Funny Post from Max Lindemann

on a recurring theme here:

…As the episode with the baffled usher illustrates, some people simply aren’t used to non-communicants. During one early-morning Mass at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Manhattan, I approached the celebrant with my arms crossed. (This was before I had been properly briefed on how barbarous an abuse of the liturgy abuse this constitutes.) The poor priest tried to thrust the Host into my mouth, forcing me to block his hand with the crux of my arms and clamp my mouth shut. Not one to back down from a challenge, he tried again. Once again, I parried, this time shaking my head vigorously and making a sound like “NUH-UH” through closed lips.

Father did, eventually, catch on and bless me. But for a few moments, the two of us were on the verge of re-enacting one of those Looney Toons sketches where Bugs uses reverse-psychology on Daffy (“You be quiet – he doesn’t have to shoot you now!” “Shoot me now! Shoot me now!”). Looking back, I can say in all honesty that, at no time before or since, have I had so much fun on a Communion line.

more & last two paragraphs are esp good (although I do agree w/his Facebook commenter who noted that scrupulosity is also a thing)