Carrying
bread in a plastic packet and a chalice from his home church, Buzz
Aldrin invited the NASA team to take communion with him.
The
astronaut was also an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston,
Texas, and had asked if he could celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection
over the radio.
However,
NASA were wary after atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair sued NASA
for compromising the separation of church and state by reading the
creation account in Genesis on the Apollo 8 trip a year ealier.
The event therefore wasn't broadcast, except to the NASA team who could listen in.
Aldrin
planned to take communion as close in time as possible to his church
family back home in Houston and had been given a light silver cup by his
pastor, Dean Woodruff.
He had also written John 15:5 on a piece of paper and described the moment in an article for Guideposts magazine in 1970:
"So
I unstowed the elements in their flight packets. I put them and the
scripture reading on the little table in front of the abort guidance
system computer.
"Then I called back to Houston.
'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."
He continued: "In the radio blackout I opened the little plastic packages which contained bread and wine.
"I
poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. 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."
Webster
Presbyterian Church still celebrates their connection with the moon
landing every year on the nearest Sunday, with the event description for
Sunday 21st reading: "On July 20, 1969, the people of WPC read Psalm 8
and took communion in solidarity with the Apollo 11 crew.
"People
everywhere, looking up at the vastness of the heavens in awe of its
Creator and Source, ALL came together, and somehow the vastness seemed
smaller. God, to many, seemed somehow closer. Each one seemed an
integral part of a much bigger whole. Distance drew people near;
expansiveness highlighted smallness; focused on this, the world itself
seemed to converge."
In Buzz Aldrin's 1970 article he wrote:
"And
so, just before I partook of the elements, I read the words, which I
had chosen to indicate our trust that as man probes into space we are in
fact acting in Christ.
"I sensed especially strongly my unity with our church back home, and with the Church everywhere.
I
read: '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'"
Written by - Cara Bentley
Source - Premier London
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