Trinity NOTES
October 13, 2013
Sunday Schedule
October 13
Dear
Sisters and Brothers,
g

What was the first food consumed on the
moon?
8:30
Breakfast
Did you know it was Holy Communion?
9:00
Choir Rehearsal
Bellow is an article which gives an overview of
the event:
9:15
NO Adult Forum
9:15
Sunday School

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. Buzz Aldrin took
them with him out of the Earth’s orbit and on to the surface of the moon.
10:30
Worship
CONGREGATIONAL CARE CORNER
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:

Please pray for Kendra’s mom who is ill.

Please pray for Steve Neumeister and his
sister.
“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
If you have pastoral or prayer concerns that you
would like to share with the wider parish please
make them known to the office or to Pastor Cass.
DIOCESAN CYCLE OF PRAYER
Congregations and clergy of St. Martin’s, Richmond; St. Peter’s, Arlington; St. Peter’s, Oak
Grove; Farnham, Farnham; and St. John’s,
Warsaw.
(Continued on page 5)
An Intentional Multicultural Christian Community of Reconciliation, Transformation, and Love
Trinity Episcopal Church · 1042 Preston Avenue, Charlottesville, VA 22903 · Tel: 434 293-3157
Email: [email protected] · Website: trinityepiscopalcville.org
Trinity Leadership
Lay Ministers: The Congregation
TWO SMALL GROUPS
Bishops: The Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston
HAVE STARTED!
The Right Reverend Susan Goff
The Rt. Rev. “Ted” Gulick, Jr.
Vicar: Pastor Cass Bailey
220-7477
Music Minister: Carlton Dickerson 296-4040
Childcare: Geneva Knight & Tess Kendrick
Thursdays at 11:30 am
Vestry Liaisons
and
RECONCILIATION
Betty Jones (2015)
973-2935
Joseph Commander (2016)
295-5328
Fridays at 8:45 am
TRANSFORMATION
Jane Perry (2016)
987-0835
LOVE
Kendra Hamilton (2016)
249-4033
William Anderson (2014)
971-7931
Please consider joining one of these groups
for fun, fellowship and deeper discipleship
Lay Ministers Scheduled:
SUPPORT
Sr. Warden Brian Hunt (2015)
607 592-3037
Jr. Warden Kevin Barnard (2014)
971-2676
Nicholas Garber (2014)
924-6366
Treasurer Louise Gallagher
978-1471
The flowers are given by Jane Perry
in loving memory of her father,
Robert Morrison Perry,
and in thanksgiving for the
people of Trinity Church.
Sunday, October 13 2013
Lectors:
Jane Perry
Intercessor:
Leah Puryear
Chalice Bearers:
Stephanie Commander and Kevin Barnard
Altar Guild:
Shirley Thompson
Acolyte:
Richard Johnson
Ushers:
Mark Bell and Sylvia Milner
Counter:
Betty Jones
Home Communion:
Stephanie Commander
Greeter:
Vernell Payne
Breakfast:
Our Fearless Chefs
Hospitality Hour:
Gloria Johnson and Tish Bailey
If you are unable to serve, please get a substitute.
TRINITY NOTES PAGE 2
TRINITY NOTES PAGE 4
(Continued from page 1)
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 [sic], 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 elements.”
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.”
Origin: One of the smaller details lost amidst the tremendous historic and scientific achievements of the
Apollo 11 mission that landed the first two human beings on the moon in July 1969 was that it also marked
the first occasion on which a Christian took the sacrament of Communion on an astronomical body other
than Earth. This event took place in the interval between the lunar module’s landing on the moon on 20
July 1969 and Neil Armstrong’s taking his first steps
on the lunar surface several hours later; during that
period, astronaut Buzz Aldrin privately observed
Communion using elements he had brought with him
to the moon.
Aldrin openly described his Communion experience
on the moon in print several times, including an August 1969 interview with LIFE magazine, an October
1970 Guideposts article, and his 1973 book Return to
Earth. The following account of his motivations and
preparation is taken from Aldrin’s 2009 book, Magnificent Desolation:
Landing on the moon is not quite the same thing as
arriving at Grandmother’s for Thanksgiving. You
don’t hop out of the lunar module the moment the engine stops and yell, “We’re here! We’re here!” Getting out of the LM takes a lot of preparation, so we
had built in several extra hours to our flight plan. We
also figured it was wise to allow more time rather than
less for our initial activities after landing, just in case
anything had gone wrong during the flight.
According to our schedule, we were supposed to eat a
meal, rest awhile, and then sleep for seven hours after
arriving on the moon. After all, we had already
worked a long, full day and we wanted to be fresh
for our extra-vehicular activity (EVA). Mission Control had notified the media that they could take a break
and catch their breath since there wouldn’t be much
happening for several hours as we rested. But it was
hard to rest with all that adrenaline pumping through
our systems.
Nevertheless, in an effort to remain calm and collected, I decided that this would be an excellent time for a
ceremony I had planned as an expression of gratitude
and hope. Weeks before, as the Apollo mission drew
near, I had originally asked Dean Woodruff, pastor at
Webster Presbyterian Church, where my family and I
attended services when I was home in Houston, to
help me come up with something I could do on the
moon, some appropriate symbolic act regarding the
universality of seeking. I had thought in terms of doing something overtly patriotic, but everything we
came up with sounded trite and jingoistic. I settled on
a well-known expression of spirituality: celebrating
the first Christian Communion on the moon, much as
Christopher Columbus and other explorers had done
when they first landed in their “new world.”
I wanted to do something positive for the world, so
the spiritual aspect appealed greatly to me, but NASA
was still smarting from a lawsuit filed by atheist
Madalyn Murray O’Hair after the Apollo 8 astronauts
read from the biblical creation account in Genesis.
O’Hair contended this was a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state. Although
O’Hair’s views did not represent mainstream America
at that time, her lawsuit was a nuisance and a distraction that NASA preferred to live without.
(Continued on page 7)
Trinity Men’s Group
Men of the parish are invited to
gather for an organizational meeting.
Saturday, October 12th
4pm
at the church.
For more information contact:
Don Moore: (434) 977-2006
Mark McVicker: (434) 825-9602
This year’s CROP Walk is Sunday, October 13 at 1:00,
meeting at First Presbyterian Church. We had great participation by our congregation last year. Sylvia Milner (2960578) will soon have envelopes to distribute. The CROP
Walk funds Community Meals on Wheels and Emergency
Food Bank locally (25%) with 75% going for the battle
against hunger and/or recovering from natural disasters.
Why Move2Health??
A healthy thriving church community makes for the possibility of greater community
contribution and empowerment . Building a healthy community will save lives, improve
quality of life and save huge sums of personal and community dollars.
Please visit this website: move2centralva.org. And join the community challenge to do
some kind of exercise movement for 30 minutes each day. Just remembering to log your
minutes will raise awareness of the importance of personal choice for health. Our body is
also our temple.
Barbara Yeager
TRINITY NOTES PAGE 6
( Continued from page 5)
I met with Deke Slayton, one of the original
“Mercury Seven” astronauts who ran our flight-crew
operations, to inform him of my plans and that I intended to tell the world what I was doing. Deke said,
“No, that’s not a good idea, Buzz. Go ahead and have
communion, but keep your comments more general.” I
understood that Deke didn’t want any more trouble.
So, during those first hours on the moon, before the
planned eating and rest periods, I reached into my personal preference kit and pulled out the communion
elements along with a three-by-five card on which I
had written the words of Jesus: “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.” I poured a thimbleful of wine from a sealed plastic container into a small chalice, and waited for the
wine to settle down as it swirled in the one-sixth Earth
gravity of the moon. My comments to the world were
inclusive: “I would like to request a few moments of
silence ... and to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever 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.” I silently
read the Bible passage as I partook of the wafer and
the wine, and offered a private prayer for the task at
hand and the opportunity I had been given.
Neil watched respectfully, but made no comment to
me at the time.
Perhaps, if I had it to do over again, I would not
choose to celebrate communion. Although it was a
deeply meaningful experience for me, it was a Christian sacrament, and we had come to the moon in the
name of all mankind — be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, agnostics, or atheists. But at the time I
could think of no better way to acknowledge the enormity of the Apollo 11 experience that by giving thanks
to God. It was my hope that people would keep the
whole event in their minds and see, beyond minor details and technical achievements, a deeper meaning —
a challenge, and the human need to explore whatever
is above us, below us, or out there.
Some sources maintain that Aldrin’s taking of Communion was kept “secret” from the public by NASA
due to an ongoing lawsuit filed by atheist Madalyn
Murray O’Hair:
The story of the secret communion service only
emerged after the mission. Aldrin had originally
planned to share the event with the world over the radio. However, at the time NASA was still reeling from
a lawsuit filed by the firebrand atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, resulting in the ceremony never being
broadcast. After the Apollo 8 crew had read out the
Genesis creation account in orbit, O’Hair wanted a ban
on NASA astronauts practicing religion on earth, in
space or “around and about the moon” while on duty.
She believed it violated the constitutional separation
between church and state
However, it’s not completely true that the public was
kept in the dark about the event until many years later.
Although Aldrin maintained that NASA asked him not
broadcast his observance of Communion, news accounts released while the Apollo 11 mission was in
progress reported that Aldrin was bringing Communion bread with him to the moon and would be joining
Earth-bound parishioners in observing Communion
from the lunar surface, as noted in this 20 July 1969
Associated Press dispatch:
Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. went to the moon today
with a piece of Communion bread he will use there to
symbolize fellowship with his home church on earth.
When the Rev. M. Dean Woodruff [minister of the
Webster Presbyterian church where Aldrin was an elder] brought out the bread for Communion, a portion
of the loaf had been broken away. The minister explained that Aldrin took a portion of the loaf with him
on the moon trip and at some time during the afternoon, after the moon landing is made, Aldrin would
symbolically join the other parishioners in Communion during one of his rest periods.
As Christians we share a bond through the centuries and around the world and even beyond it.
In Christ,
Pastor Cass
NEWS FROM THE ATRIUM
(Catechesis of the Good Shepherd)
This past Sunday, the children heard the parable of the Good Shepherd again and were encouraged to reflect on
it some more. The purpose of this reflective time is to invite the children to wonder and to evoke their own responses. We do not tell them who the sheep are because that would prevent them from enjoying the discovery
themselves. Comments such as “The sheep must be so precious to the shepherd…” and “He knows them each
by name…” elicited thoughtful comments from the children. One child said immediately, “Children are really
the sheep and God is the shepherd”. That prompted other children to make comments including, “The Lord is
the shepherd”, “Jesus is the Good Shepherd” and “All people are the sheep”. After this, we returned to the details of the parable and we talked about ways in which we are cared for and how we follow the Good Shepherd.
After this time of reflection, the children did work related to the parable. Several of them did tracings of the
Good Shepherd and the sheep. Some of the older children began their own scripture booklets. The purpose of
this “related work”, which is designed to be done slowly and carefully, is to help the children slow down, think
more deeply about what we have talked about and begin to personalize the message for themselves.
During the following weeks we will begin to prepare for Advent by learning about the land of Israel, so that
they can begin to associate the significant events in Jesus’ life with cities in Israel. We will also begin spending
time each Sunday at the Prayer Table where they will hear the prophecies related to Jesus’ birth. This will help
prepare them for the narratives related to the Nativity.
Tish Bailey
Lead Catechist
Trinity Episcopal Church
1042 Preston Avenue
Charlottesville, VA 22903
TRINITY NOTES PAGE 8