Of Communion on the Moon: “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

by Vanderleun on July 3, 2022

Buzz Aldrin on Communion in Space: “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, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way.”

For me this meant taking communion. In the radio blackout I opened the little plastic packages which contained bread and wine.

I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements.

And so, just before I partook of the elements, I read the words which I had chosen to indicate our trust that as man probes into space we are in fact acting in Christ.

I sensed especially strongly my unity with our church back home, and with the Church everywhere.

I read: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.” John 15:5 (TEV)

Comments on this entry are closed.

Jack July 3, 2022, 7:24 AM

That was beautiful and appropriate. A wonderful reminder. Thank you for it.

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mary July 3, 2022, 7:45 AM

Unfortunately, he later became “woke.”
“Perhaps, if I had it to do over again, I would not choose to celebrate communion.
Although it was a deeply meaningful experience for me, it was a Christian sacrament, and we had come to the moon in the name of all mankind – be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, agnostics, or atheists.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/13/buzz-aldrin-communion-moon

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Richard July 3, 2022, 8:40 AM

What a dramatically different country it was in 1969. Today, as we’ve become consumed by Secularism, it seems all we can do is prove the wisdom and truth found in those profound words: “For you can do nothing without me.”

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- Bunny July 3, 2022, 9:06 AM
  
  Not so different. Supposedly, this was all kept very hush hush by NASA at the time, since Madelyn Murray O’Hair was already suing them for reading Genesis. Aldrin’s communion was neither seen nor heard by the public.
  https://www.deseret.com/2019/7/19/8936923/here-s-why-nasa-didn-t-want-you-to-know-about-buzz-aldrin-s-religious-moment-on-the-moon
  
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  - Richard July 4, 2022, 8:42 AM
    
    Ah yes, good old Madelyn. I’d forgotten that vexatious bint. Still, she and her lot were little more than an element of the lunatic fringe 50+ years ago. I suppose one does have to give credit where it is due, however, and acknowledge that those who abhorred this country and its wholesomeness, never stopped flailing away at its undergirding. As such, in the intervening decades, she and her odious lot went from being confined to the fringe, to thoroughly metastasizing the life-staining organs of our culture and society.
    
    Despite a bitterly contentious war in 1969, most Americans believed in the goodness and uniqueness of this country. The examples of how we have slipped, as a people, are too numerous to list. Consider that the word “woke” would have earned one a stern look and rebuke from a grammarian. More than two genders? An absurdity unworthy of further consideration.
    
    Then useful universities -where the notion of censorship would’ve been heresy – produced graduates contributing to society. Now, Marxist institutions produce spoiled, mealy-mouthed brats demanding that the student debt they ran up “studying” useless, if not, bogus pursuits, be cancelled. The thought of killing life in the womb would’ve been abhorrent and certainly not something to be “celebrated” and championed.
    
    Everyone here can add to the list.
    
    Happy Independence Day.
    
    I will always love the USA of my youth and the greatest part of my adulthood. Whatever it has morphed into, not at all.
    
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