Posted on 07/20/2019 3:29:28 PM PDT by ReformationFan
This Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people in history to walk on the Moon. But it’s also the anniversary of the a lesser known event—the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the Moon.
Here’s are nine things you should know about the first communion service on the Moon.
1. In 1969, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. was an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church, a congregation just outside of Houston, Texas. He told the lead pastor of his church, Dean Woodruff, that he had “been struggling to find the right symbol for the first lunar landing.” “We wanted to express our feeling that what man was doing in this mission transcended electronics and computers and rockets,” Aldrin told Guideposts magazine in 1970. “One of the principal symbols,” Woodruff said, “is that God reveals himself in the common elements of everyday life.” Traditionally, these elements are bread and wine—common foods in Bible days and typical products of man’s labor.
2. Aldrin got the idea for the communion ceremony while at Cape Kennedy working with the “sophisticated tools of the space effort.” “It occurred to me that these tools were the typical elements of life today,” Aldrin said. “I wondered if it might be possible to take communion on the moon, symbolizing the thought that God was revealing himself there too, as man reached out into the universe. For there are many of us in the NASA program who do trust that what we are doing is part of God’s eternal plan for man.”
3. The communion bread was carried in a plastic packet, the way regular inflight food is wrapped. Because there was just enough gravity on the moon for liquid to pour, Aldrin wanted to pour the wine into a chalice from his church. Woodruff had presented him a silver cup that was small and light enough that it could be carried in the astronaut’s personal-preference kit.
4. Aldrin had originally planned to share the event with the world over the radio. But the atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair had recently sued NASA after Apollo 8 astronauts read the Book of Genesis during a broadcast made on Christmas Day 1968, when they became the first humans to orbit the moon. O’Hair’s case claiming that the astronauts had violated the constitutional separation between church and state was dismissed. Yet NASA was still wary of causing more controversy. Aldrin says his fellow astronaut Deke Slayton, who ran the Apollo 11 flight crew operations, told him to tone down his pre-communion message. “Go ahead and have communion, but keep your comments more general,” Slayton advised.
5. After unpacking the elements from their flight packets and laying them on a small table in front of the abort guidance system computer, Aldrin radioed back to NASA with this message:
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 invite each person listening, 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.
6. Before taking communion, Aldrin read from John 15:5, which he had handwritten on a scrap of paper—”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.”
7. After radioing in his message and reading the Scripture verse, Aldrin partook of the Supper. Fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong looked on quietly but did not participate. “I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me,” Aldrin says. “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.” After taking the elements, Aldrin says he “sensed especially strongly my unity with our church back home, and with the church everywhere.”
8. Every year, since the moon landing, the Webster Presbyterian Church of Houston, Texas, commemorates Aldrin’s moon communion service. “It’s kind of a tradition around here,” Gene Fisseler said in 1999. “It’s still church. It’s not about the moon. It’s not about the astronauts. It’s still about church. But we feel like it’s an important tradition here in this church.”
9. The communion ceremony was dramatized in an episode of From the Earth to the Moon, a 12-part HBO television miniseries from 1998. Buzz Aldrin was played by actor Bryan Cranston.
God understands and accepts our feeble attempts at worship. What a beautiful thing to experience communion on an extraterrestrial site! He is Lord of all creation not just our small planet. I am very moved reading about this and a little jealous. God is wondrous beyond our imagination.
” real-time Apollo 11 re-broadcast “
Just think of it like a streaming audio feed with exactly a 50 year propagation delay.
Or like the lunar feed is being bounced off a star that’s 25 light years away.
I know exactly where I was on that day. I was in my car, a DAF, in Naples, Italy with my future wife listening to the landing on the radio, AFRTS. I pulled over to the side of the road and listened in awe to one of man’s greatest achievements. We both had tears in our eyes. It was a great moment for our country and the world.
You mean it was not conducted by a Catholic priest offering the "true body" of Christ as a sacrifice for sin, and dispensing it as the "medicine of immortality" under the appearance of non-existent bread, until said non-existent bread manifests decay. In which case this christ also has ceased to exist under that appearance.
Meanwhile the appearance of the Christ of Scripture always corresponded to what He physically became in the incarnation, and never as an inanimate object, while the idea of Christ bodily appearing with a body which did not correspond to what He physically became is heretical. Thus the emphasis on the manifest physicality of the true Christ of Scripture. (1 Jn. 1:1-3; 5:6,9)
Moreover, nowhere in the only wholly inspired-of-God substantive record of what the New Testament church believed do we see Catholic priests engaging in the above, or conducting the Lords supper being a unique function for NT pastors nor the Lord's supper described as spiritual food.
Instead,
And the primary function (besides prayer) of NT episkopos/presbuteros is that of preaching/teaching the inspired word of God. By which word (Scriptures) man is to live by, (Mt. 4:4) as Christ lived by the Father, (Jn. 6:57) with doing His will being His “meat.” (Jn. 4:34) by the believing of which one receives spiritual lie, being regenerated, (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13) and thus desiring the milk of the word, (1Pt. 2:2) and then handling the “strong meat” (Heb. 5:12-14) of the word of God, which word believers are “nourished” (1Tim. 4:6) and built up, and are to let it dwell in them richly. (Col. 3:16)
See here by the grace of God: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/The_Lord%27s_Supper.html
However, taking part in the Lord's supper by yourself is a contradiction to what it is supposed to show .
A very symbolic act, but just a metaphor non the less. The location magnifies human importance in mans mind, not in God’s. I think God loves the a real Communion even in poor and lowly circumstances.
I wonder what if the priest is in a state of sin. Does the sacrament become invalid? When your access to God is dependent upon a mortal man what if that man is like many priest in rebellion with the church. Is your confirmation, communion, confession, marriage, etc. all invalid?
Getting the popcorn out.
I’ve asked that question and gotten an answer but will not taint the waters by giving it out yet.
I’m interested in the Catholic response, especially in light of the fact that they (are supposed to) deny communion to people living in mortal sin, or at least those people are told they can’t take communion.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53–56). “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” “After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” (John 6:66). (It is the rejection of the Eucharist that is continued by Protestants today)
Where did you get that wishful conclusion? While he stated, "I am certainly not an atheist," he never identified himself as an adherent of any faith, with his only known listing being that of "deist" when he asked to lead a Boy Scout troop at a Methodist church in the late 1950s. - https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2018/10/first-man-spiritual-life-neil-armstrong/
This source does try to make Armstrong a "devout Christian" based upon an anecdotal remark.
You misquote by leaving out key parts of this passage.
60Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” 61But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? 62“What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? 63“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
64“But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.
65And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
66As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.
*******************
The passage is about believing in Him...and only Him.
If it is read in context.
See post 44 . Your conclusion is simply has no support in the only wholly inspired-of-God substantive record of what the New Testament church believed (including how they understood the gospels), which is Acts thru Rev., while only the metaphorical understanding easily conflates with the rest of Scripture, in contrast to the metaphysical contrivance of Catholicism . Read.
Thanks for posting. I had never heard this story. It is very comforting to know that Our Father in Heaven was worshipped on the moon the first time men had stepped on its surface.
Christopher Columbus did the same when he landed in
Plymouth.
Plus it takes a lot of punches we would take otherwise. Thing looks like swiss cheese.
I agree, thanks for posting. ‘68/69, it was a different time back then.
In 1969, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. was an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church,
Given the time, almost certainly a mainline Presbyterian Church. Because this...
He told the lead pastor of his church, Dean Woodruff, that he had “been struggling to find the right symbol for the first lunar landing.” “We wanted to express our feeling that what man was doing in this mission transcended electronics and computers and rockets,” Aldrin told Guideposts magazine in 1970. “One of the principal symbols,” Woodruff said, “is that God reveals himself in the common elements of everyday life.” Traditionally, these elements are bread and wine
is such an off the wall thing, I can't see a solid conservative Presbyterian churchman doing this.
Neil Armstrong was a Catholic. So that’s why he didn’t participate.
Wikipedia on him (YMMV) says later he identified as "deist".
I wonder what if the priest is in a state of sin. Does the sacrament become invalid? When your access to God is dependent upon a mortal man what if that man is like many priest in rebellion with the church. Is your confirmation, communion, confession, marriage, etc. all invalid?
In Catholic theology if the validly ordained priest using valid form and matter but was operating as one guilty of mortal sin, then that would mean the Mass is illicit , meaning not according to the law, yet it is held that the consecration of the Eucharist is valid . More here despite the propaganda: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/invalid-masses
However, the NT church had no Catholic priests (a separate class of sacerdotal believers for which the distinctive Greek word "hiereus" is used, offering the "true body" of Christ as a sacrifice for sin, and dispensing it as the "medicine of immortality" under the appearance of non-existent bread, until said non-existent bread manifests decay...), nor was conducting the Lords supper a unique function for NT pastors, nor was the Lord's supper described as spiritual food.
Not only that
Jesus said: “Do this in remembrance of me”
He did not say do this PETER or my official delegate of church authority.
As Buzz Aldrin notes Jesus chose common social elements to make this easy to do.
Believers can perform communion and should do this around the world.
DE DEFECTIBUS, Papal Bull decreed by Pope Saint Pius V in ratifying the Council of Trent states,
The intention of consecrating is required. Therefore there is no consecration in the following cases: when a priest does not intend to consecrate but only to make a pretense;.. (http://www.dailycatholic.org/defectib.htm)
This is understood quite loosely lest it be scandalous (one would have to know that a priest really believes in transubstantiation for it to be efficacious), so that just having general intention to baptize or celebrate the Eucharist is said to suffice, even if the priest does not believe in transubstantiation.
However, the The Catholic Encyclopedia states on>intention:
The Church teaches very unequivocally that for the valid conferring of the sacraments, the minister must have the intention of doing at least what the Church does. This is laid down with great emphasis by the Council of Trent (sess. VII). The opinion once defended by such theologians as Catharinus and Salmeron that there need only be the intention to perform deliberately the external rite proper to each sacrament, and that, as long as this was true, the interior dissent of the minister from the mind of the Church would not invalidate the sacrament, no longer finds adherents. The common doctrine now is that a real [virtual at least] internal intention to act as a minister of Christ, or to do what Christ instituted the sacraments to effect, in other words, to truly baptize, absolve, etc., is required. (www.newadvent.org/cathen/08069b.htm)
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