I went to a friend’s wedding this morning, and this person is Catholic. So the wedding was a full service, including communion.
Just before they had people come up to receive communion, the music person annouced the hymn that everybody would be singing, along with the page number. I did a double-take, wondering if I’d heard correctly, started looking for the page, and just about lost it as I asked my friend next to me, “Did he just say the hymn was called ‘A Gift of Finest Weed’ ?!!”
I had a brief silly vision of hippie Catholics taking communion, sharing the bread (“this is the body of Christ”), the cup (“this is the blood of Christ”), and finally the Holy Joint (“whooaaaaah… smoke this in remembrance of me”).
(Turns out that the hymn, not one I was familir with, having grown up in a family that attended an Episcopal church, was actually titled, “A Gift of Finest Wheat”).
My parents, and all the other parents in the neighborhood where I grew up were always making comments about “Wonder Bread and Grape Juice.” Those would be the real-life hippie Catholics.
I can’t remember the name, but one of those nameless, 5% funny comedians on Comedy Central had a bit where the apostles are always taking advantage of Jesus. They’ve always got some water they want to turn into wine, because they’re too lazy to make a run. One comes up and says, “Hey Jesus, I got this bag of oregano…”
Meh…makes sense. Jesus was always wandering around in knock-off berkinstocks preaching about peace and love. If that doesn’t sound like a hippy, I don’t know what does.
The choir director at my church has just a hint of a southern accent. One particular evening she was having the sopranos learn a descant off sheet music while the rest of the choir sang from memory or the hymnal. (On Sunday morning the words would be displayed on a screen at both the front and rear of the sanctuary.)
Anyway, the choir was quite amused when we realized that her shortened form of the hymn’s title sounded like “Aw, hell” The hymn in question was “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” which goes on to have the lyrics “let angels prostrate fall” . One member of the choir comment that as a child she sang it “let angels prostate fall”. It wasn’t until she was older that she figured out the difference between her words and the real words. She still has trouble singing it properly.
