Communion on the Moon

How many of you knew? I will have to admit...I didn't.
> Too bad this type news doesn't travel as fast as bad.
>
> Communion on the Moon: July 20th, 1969 Jul 19, 2009
> Forty years ago today 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.
> And a few years ago I had the privilege
> of meeting him myself. I asked him
> about it and he confirmed the story to
> me, and I wrote about in my book
> Everything You Always Wanted to Know
> About God (But Were Afraid to Ask).
>
> 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, he felt he should mark the
> occasion somehow, and he asked his pastor
> to help him. And so the pastor
> consecrated a communion wafer and a small
> vial of communion wine. And 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
> element 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."
>
> WOW!!!!