This is from the “never saw that before” department: while at mass at San Augustin cathedral in Tucson, I was going up to communion behind a couple with a newborn infant. They were very cute: they were supposed to go up to communion in single file, but walked up half side-by-side as if unable to not be by each other’s side. The lay eucharistic minister, seeing them, put the wafer back in the bowl, put his hand on the face of the father, said something, then gave him communion; and he did the same with the mother. He did this only to these two people. I had never seen this before in any church. Neither, apparently, had this couple: they walked away obviously dumbfounded. They were white and the minister was Hispanic.
I have no idea if this was his momentary whim, his own personal practice, or a more longstanding tradition here. But in general, one of the deep strengths of the Catholic Church in a place like this, as in much of Europe, is that it is a living link to pagan traditions of great and immemorable antiquity.
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