Duomo Debacle

The Duomo of Florence is probably the city’s single most recognizable structure.  I was extremely excited the day I moved into my apartment on Via dei Servi, which places me less than two blocks from it.  A colossal and breathtakingly elegant work of architecture, the Duomo is impossible to miss and hard to forget once you’ve seen it.  But the Duomo is more than a building.  It is a Cathedral that has been carrying on the tradition of the Catholic faith for nearly six centuries.  Although I am not a Catholic, my Christian faith is very important to me and so I decided to attend a Mass at the Duomo my very first week in Florence, thinking this would be a most meaningful and memorable experience. 

I entered the Cathedral and chose a seat in the back.  From my small wooden pew, I looked up.  The beautiful paintings adorning the inside of the dome seemed as though they were miles above me.  The Mass proceeded as usual until it was time for the Eucharist.  Since I attend a Jesuit-Catholic university back in Boston, I am familiar with the general proceedings of Mass.  I am aware that Lutherans like myself are not welcome to partake in Communion at a Catholic Mass, however this time I decided that I was going to do it anyway.  I just wanted to experience the holiest of meals at the Duomo in Florence.  So I stood and waited my turn until the Italian priest offered me the body.  I took it, turned around, and began to walk away before I had eaten it.  For some reason I thought I was supposed to eat it back at my seat, but I was severely mistaken.  I was halfway back to my seat when the sacred silence was interrupted shouts of, “Scusi! Scusi!”  As I looked over my shoulder, I was horrified to see the Italian priest running towards me, the pitter-patter of his fervent leaps making loud echoes throughout the world-famous Cathedral.  Upon reaching me, he angrily barked at me in Italian, something along the lines of, “Consume the body!”  I hurriedly shoved the wafer in my mouth, my wide eyes filled with terror and embarrassment. 

The rest of the service was a blur; I could focus on nothing besides my utter humiliation mixed with a slight resentment toward the Catholic Church’s fanatic obsession with ritual.  Nevertheless, a few hours later I was laughing with my roommates as I told them the story.  Of all the meals I will eat in Italy, none will be quite so comical as my Communion meal at the Duomo.