It was only a matter of time.

It finally happened yesterday. I knew it couldn't be avoided forever. One of the perils of taking communion on the tongue: one of the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion definitely touched my tongue. With his finger. But I don't know him, so I'm just going to assume his hands were clean. I have this thing about germs, you see.

It's really not the end of the world. A guy touching my tongue isn't worse than sharing a chalice with half the people at Mass, which I've done without a problem. (Unless he also touched everyone else's tongue. If I get sick I'll know why.) I find that I'm really all about the Eucharist, and little things like that that would normally bother me don't make much of a difference. I mean, we're talking about the Body and Blood of Christ, pulled straight from the crucifixion into our time, if I understand what I've read. In the grand scheme of things, Jesus dying on the cross makes my day-to-day neuroses about as troublesome as a dust mote.

Communion on the tongue is one of those things I surprised myself with, much like my decision to do face-to-face confession. I thought for the longest time that I would never ever let someone put the Body of Christ on my tongue. Surely I'd take it in the hand, and of course I wouldn't take the Precious Blood after everyone else had had their mouths on the chalice (and don't give me that propaganda about wiping the chalice or the alcohol content killing the germs). But one night in RCIA when we were discussing how to take communion, it suddenly occurred to me that I would be doing it the old fashioned way. (Not that there's anything wrong with communion in the hand; far be it from me to start some sort of argument. I've seen people get pretty fired up over it.) It's easier this way, anyway. I'm left-handed, so I feel like I'd probably do it backwards and screw everything up. And you know how I am about not wanting to mess up with any of these new fangled Catholic-y things.