Holy bread and not so holy blood

Well, Father Orthoduck must admit that, uhm, he embarrassed himself again. Sunday, in preparation for Pascha, Father Orthoduck was helping out the parish priest by preparing the Proskomedia. If you want to know how that is prepared, you can go here. For those of you not that interested, it is when the priest prepares the bread and wine that will be consecrated. Unfortunately, last Sunday Father Orthoduck was a little “ham-handed.” As he was cutting the bread, he managed to cut his finger. The knife was sharp enough that he did not really feel it, and he thought it a very slight cut.

Next thing he knew, a young priest, only about five months into ordination, comes up and tells me in a horrified voice that I am bleeding. Father Orthoduck looked down, and sure enough, there he was bleeding away onto the bread that would be consecrated. Needless to say, the bread was promptly thrown away, a new loaf of bread was brought out, and a horrified altar server came back with a First Aid kit that looked as though it would have been able to hold its own at a car accident scene. By now Father Orthoduck was in a deep shade of red, particularly when the parish priest comes over to see what is up and simply sighs, because he knows about the mishaps of Father Orthoduck. He was nice enough to allow Father Orthoduck to prepare the next loaf and not worry about it.

In passing, the finger was not in any way truly injured. But, apparently Father Orthoduck had managed to slice right over a venule. It stopped right up, but not before Father Orthoduck had again added to his “reputation” behind the altar.