Christmas mass

So today I set the clock to wake me up in time for church, but I woke up on my own. While drinking coffee, I heard a choir downstairs so I rushed into the shower and put on a nice shirt and went downstairs. People were gathering and I got the Bible and a book of psalms in Japanese along with a programme (18 pages) which both listed the prayers and the order in which things proceeded with references to particular sections in the Good Book and the numbe of the psalms. It was a bit tricky to trace my way through all these items. I also received a cordless device which transmitted a voice translating the proceedings into English. The church room was fairly big and the seats about half-full. There were young and old. It was fun trying to connect the various Japanese texts to (the quite limited number of) Christian text I know. Towards the end we received the blood (grapejuice) and body (squares of home baked bread) of Christ. I was a bit unsure if I should participate in that, but my indecision evaporated when an elderly white haired gentleman in a dark suit (who earlier had shown me what page we were on) gave my shoulder as he passed me a light but unmistakable push towards the Host and the Wine. Standing there, there was another elderly man, who stood as first in line in the half-circle of recipients, holding his tiny empty glass. He gradually bended more and more forwards, his head soon coming lower than his own waist. Was he carried away in gratitude? I only realized he could not hold himself up, until another man suddenly walked over to relieve him of his glass. A low grunt escaped the man as he became able to grope for his cane which he had let go of to partake in the communion. Now he managed to rise his head slowly, a bit higher to middle chest height, all the while clutching the cane with both hands. 

The mass ended with a goup shot below the altar, followed by a lunch and bingo. The prizes were in 8 bags each marked with the characters "メ"　"リ"　"ー"　"ク"　"リ"　"ス"　"マ"　"ス" (merii kurisumasu) and those who got bingo could select among these variously sized bags. The adults all invariably chose the smaller bags, and the third last to choose was one of the twins I have mentioned earlier, who of course chose the biggest of all. The gifts so far had been a packet of eggs, two carrots, a mandarin, some pickeled plums. Everybody laughed each time they saw a gift being pulled out. And the boy laughed too when a big, green, and leafy chinese cabbage came out of his big bag.  

That's it for now.