5 CHURCH THINGS THAT SEEM EDIBLE BUT AREN’T

Rood Screen
Throughout services, you may find yourself peering up at the graceful geometry that frames the sacred altar, wondering to yourself what the forbidden cookie flavor might be. It’s too high out of reach to try; but if you had a ladder, would it be crunchy? Soft, like a gingerbread person? Neither. To be clear, not only are rood screens inedible, taking a bite may lead to chipped teeth. To my knowledge, parishes are not generally legally responsible for dental incidents incurred onsite, so the forbidden rood screen may be the most expensive cookie you eat.
If you’ve attended an ornately decorated church, you may have noticed a partition between the chancel and nave (where the choir and general public sit, respectively). Like every element of a church, it has an obscure name and symbolism. “Rood” is Old English for “crucifix” (Encyclopedia Brittanica), and rood beams initially held a single cross; over time, they grew more elaborate, incorporating lace-like walls and even platforms for medieval performances. The screens are striking works of open tracery crafted from wood, wrought iron, or even stone. They aren’t gingerbread. Do NOT eat the rood screen.
Reliquary
“Reliquary” is a fancy name for “relic container.” “Relic” is a fancy name for forbidden candy hidden behind reliquary packaging. The golden containers call like sirens: “open the box,” they say, “I’m full of jelly beans.”
How many jelly beans could fit inside a reliquary? The age-old question. The tiniest reliquary might hold a single bean; the largest, too many for even the hungriest of sugar cravers. If you flipped the catch and opened the lid, what would await? Blueberry beans? Do the egg-shaped reliquaries hold mystery flavors? How about this one shaped like a foot?
Stay your hand, friend. Terrible news. The enticing glow of gilded candy walls hide nothing but lies and deceit. Behind the jelly bean doors you will find something terribly inedible: the relic candies are nothing but saint body parts and dust from the Holy Land.
Yes, it turns out “The Tongue and Jaw of St Anthony, Padua” isn’t a flavor name some hipsters slapped on a package of Jelly Bellys to resell at Ye Olde Gentrification Candy Shop. It’s literally St. Anthony’s tongue and jaw. Also, you shouldn’t eat it.
We’ve all fallen for it at some point. If you’ve seen a reliquary, your hand has twitched, lured in its direction by a sweet promise; on some primal level, we all seek the holy beans. But there are no jelly jewels inside. Only death.
Although, until you open it up to see for yourself, who’s to say?
Baptismal Font Water
Water composes up to 60% of the human body. Fish laugh! Puny humans. More than half of our bodies are water, but if we stayed in the life-giving nectar we would die. Instead, air-bound, we harvest water from the earth.
I live in Texas, and to exist in this great state during the summer is to develop deep intimacy with thirst. We crave that sweet sweet spring water. Most of our homes flow with water, piped through the very walls. And yet, we struggle; with full access to an Eden of hydration, we turn our backs to water in favor of the short-term quench of Baja Blasts and the like, a quenchiness that inevitably leaves us craving more. Always more.
Every day you wake up and need more water.
So, on Sunday, overheated and thirsty, you enter the church. The air conditioning hits you like a frosty hug, inviting you in. Your lips are chapped. Your tongue feels cracked like the Sahara. Would anyone catch you drinking from the bathroom faucet if you went super quickly? As the cursed thought floats through your mind, you lock eyes with the most magnificent basin you’ve ever seen: behold, the baptismal font. Fanning yourself with the bulletin, you wonder: dare I?
It’s more than a fancy birdbath. It’s a fancy human bath, and it’s filled to the brim with holy water. That’s right; it’s blessed, baby. What’s to stop you from taking a little Dixie cup of samplage? Is it illegal?
I’m not sure about that one, but it is gross as heck. Do not, under any circumstances, chug the baptismal font water. Sure it looks pristine, and yes it is blessed, but it’s also chock full of food poisoning. And not the fun get-out-of-obligations-for-a-night kind; the horrible, get-out-of-living-more kind.
Next time you lock eyes with the crisp, clear waters of Lago de Saint Mark’s, remember: the usher probably knows where the water fountain is.
Mitre
It’s pronounced might-er, and it’s a snack pack and a half of episcopal whimsy. Most only see mitres on special occasions because the hats tend to hang out on bishops’ heads, so it’s difficult to perform a thorough investigation of their contents. It’s truly an enticing piece of headwear. The mitre stretches two triangles to the sky like the walls of a french fry container. What mysteries lie within? Fried treats wrapped up like a present, with dangly ribbons just begging to be pulled? Is the anointing oil of confirmation and baptism just french fry fingers?
Or maybe it’s an illusion; perhaps there is no family fried chicken meal pack with gravy and biscuits atop every bishop’s dome. If their visitations smelled so appetizing, surely we would notice. No, it must be cake.
Imagine slicing into a mitre like a wedding cake. What moist riches, what cream cheese frosting and decorative candy jewels! The cake served at coffee hour is a sacrifice of the previous mitre, or better yet - pay attention during the next visitation. Do you see the mitre and the cake in the same room at the same time? That’s a fresh cake, my friend.
Unfortunately, the contents of mitres are held under closest ecclesiastical secrecy, and we may never know their contents. This snack is less forbidden than unknowable; a mystery to all God’s children. Have we eaten of its fruit? Perhaps. But to knowingly snack is impossible - that is the inedibility of the mitre.
Blessed Eucharist from Last Week
Maybe the priest overestimated, maybe the Altar Guild counted too many, maybe everyone stayed home for the Super Bowl; regardless of whose fault it was, we consecrated too many wafers last week. Usually we’d consume the leftovers, but there were a few mid-week masses coming up, so we held on to them. And held on. And held on. And now it’s Sunday again.
Hell hath no greater fury than a wafer aged.
To call a stale communion wafer “cardboard” would be an insult to corrugated paper, let alone our Lord and Savior. Cardboard dissolves when wet; stale wafers float like plastic pontoons, but if pontoons became sticky and attached to the roof of your mouth. Each bite leaves a perfect indentation of your molars yet makes no progress in actually digesting the thing.
You knew before you received it that this week’s communion was going to be rough. The apology in your priest’s eyes, the other parishioners’ grimaces as they return to their pews. You take the blessed sacrament with a reverent “amen” and return to your kneeler. Alright Jesus, you think, staring at the plastic disk in your palms, I’ll do it, but only because you asked.
Two hours later you’re browsing produce at HEB and still clearing resilient wafer from between your teeth. I can’t tell you to not eat last week’s eucharist, but I can tell you it’s inedible. We know that for sure because we keep trying to eat it. The mystery of faith?