Laughing through the Sacrament Prayer

One day, Cade and I were blessing the Sacrament together. I was on to say the prayer on the bread and Cade was going to say the prayer for the water. After we sang the Sacrament Hymn and broke the bread, I kneeled down to say the prayer.

Cade was standing up and looking over my shoulder. I started to say the prayer. "O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ..." At this point, Cade touched me and said I was reading the wrong prayer.

[The card with the Sacrament Prayers that the priests use when saying/reading the Sacrament Prayer has the prayer for the bread on one side and the prayer for the water on the other side of the card.]

I had inadvertently turned the card to the side with the prayer for the water instead of the bread. Fortunately, for the first few phrases of the prayer, the two prayers are the same. And, I had not yet said any part of the prayer that would be "wrong" for the prayer on the bread.

I quickly turned the card over to continue using the prayer for the bread.

I used to get really nervous when I was a priest saying the Sacrament Prayers. At this moment, as I realized that I had made a major mistake by starting with the "wrong" prayer, I started a nervous giggle.

Oops! I was now embarrassed and nervous...

I tried to say more of the prayer and this time giggled nervously and embarrassed.

Unfortunately, I could not control myself. I giggled/laughed my way through the remainder of the prayer. After I concluded and stood up to hand the Sacrament Trays to the Deacons, my dad gave me a deep glare to indicate his disapproval. I tried to ignore him and not look at him. At that point, I was just glad that I had not started crying!

This experience of laughing through the Sacrament Prayer when I was supposed to be very serious and religious is the most embarrassing experience of my life.

Many times, I have pondered how I could have handled that experience differently.