LORDS TABLE ON THE MOON
I’m not sending this as a prayer, but to let it be known that the two first
astronaughts on the moon had religious convictions and that one of them brought
communion with him onto the moon. Thought many of you would find this
interesting.
Linda G.
LORDS TABLE ON THE MOON
Forty-three years ago two human beings changed history
by walking on the surface of the moon.
But what happened before Buzz Aldrin
And Neil Armstrong exited the Lunar Module
is perhaps even more amazing,
if only because so few people know about it.
I'm talking about the fact that Buzz Aldrin
took communion on the surface of the moon.
Some months after his return,
he wrote about it in Guideposts magazine.
The background to the story is that Aldrin
was an elder at his Presbyterian Church
in Texas during this period in his life,
and knowing that he would soon be doing
something unprecedented in human history,
so he felt he should mark the occasion somehow.
He asked his minister to help him.
And so the minister consecrated a communion wafer
and a small vial of communion wine.
Buzz Aldrin took them with him out of the
Earth's orbit and on to the surface of the moon.
He and Armstrong had only been on the lunar surface
for a few minutes when Aldrin made the following
public statement: "This is the LM pilot.
I'd like to take this opportunity to ask
every person listening in, whoever
and wherever they may be,
to pause for a moment
and contemplate the events of the past few hours,
and to give thanks in his or her own way."
He then ended radio communication and there,
on the silent surface of the moon,
250,000 miles from home,
he read a verse from the Gospel of John
and he took communion.
Here is his own account of what happened:
"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.
Apart from me you can do nothing.'
"I had intended to read my communion
passage back to earth,
but at the last minute [they] 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."
"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.
"And of course,
it's interesting to think that some of the
first words spoken on the moon were the
words of Jesus Christ,
who made the Earth and the moon -
and who, in the immortal words of Dante,
is Himself the "Love that moves the Sun
and other stars."
How many of you knew this?
Too bad this type of news
doesn't travel as fast as the bad does.
I'm hoping that you'll share it
if you've felt God's love.
GOD BLESS
_____
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