Do You Know About The Special Drain?
Adventures with a strange little basin and the flesh of God
When a Catholic church is built, it contains a Special Closet1. In the Special Closet, there is a Special Drain2 - which, to me, ends up being one of the most beautiful parts of any Catholic church. Let’s go back in time a little bit so I can explain.
The year I was in Catholic Basic Training3, a priest taught us about the sacristy and let us walk around in one. He explained the names and significance of most of the items in there. The room was fragrant with old wood and smoky frankincense; green, pink, white, and red vestments, hand-embroidered with gold thread, waited on racks for their liturgical turn. Shelves held thick leather-bound tomes, four-foot-long candles, golden chalices, and several other things that have beautiful Latin names I can’t remember. It was completely dazzling. And then, aaah, there it was: the Special Drain. A cross for a handle, a wide brass cover so that nothing in the world can accidentally fall in there. Wait a minute.
I probably made some kind of inappropriate cartoon face when I saw it, but the joke is completely on me. This strange little basin taught me one of the most visceral lessons I learned during that year of boot camp: what it means to truly believe that ordinary bread and wine can literally become the flesh of God.
See, if it’s true, you have to become extremely intense about this bit of wheat. You store it in a small golden tabernacle of its very own with a red lamp in front of it to announce He Is In Here. Every seat in the place is pointed straight at it. During Mass, you lay a special cloth under it to catch any crumbs4. You get on your knees5 before taking it into your body. Some churches will hold a little golden plate6 under your chin in case any crumbs should fall out of your maw. When you’re done sharing this Body of Christ with your community, you wipe out the special bowl7 that held it with a special cloth8 (again…crumbs). You cleanse these cloths with water in the Special Sink, and this water SHALL NOT GO INTO THE SEWER. Can you imagine?!?
Even a single molecule of the Body of Christ that could be in that water goes straight into the earth. And not just normal soil! The dirt beneath every Catholic church is blessed in an ancient ceremony with prayers for exorcism, protection, and for the dead. Bishops and priests process around the land and sprinkle holy water across it.
The Special Drain pours into this sacred ground - a suitable resting place not only for our dead community members, but also for every single atomic remnant of Christ’s body in the Eucharist. They lay there together, and we worship above them. His molecules become our molecules, which (eventually) become the molecules of the soil that He has already sanctified.
This level of reverence was something I had not encountered before. When the meaning of the Special Drain (and the closet, the cloths, the red lamp, the kneeling, and the soil) clicked in my mind, I began to perceive what I was getting into and felt awed - and completely freaked out. “If this whole thing is true,” I thought, “how could my punk ass possibly eat this without bursting into flames? I’m a schmuck.”
Turns out, that was the whole point.
“sacristy”. Nothing in the Roman Catholic tradition has a plain name, I swear.
“sacrarium”.
OCIA, or Order of Christian Initiation for Adults
“corporal”…it’s a whole other language, isn’t it?
“genuflect”
“paten”
“ciborium”…do we love our lingo or what?
“purificator”