For some reason I was thinking of the sacrament cups we had when I was a child. They were actually GLASS. Does anyone remember that? I can hardly believe it was true, but it's true!

So, my question is: Who washed those little cups? Certainly it wouldn't have been the deacons, would it? How did they get the lipstick off the edges of the cups? They wouldn't have had dishwashers that long ago (probably 60 years), would they have? I never heard of the RS sisters having to wash the sacrament cups. I'm sure they used them over and over.

Help someone. Surely there are some other AARP types on this board. Do you remember anything about this?

and grew up in Northern California. We never used glass cups. I have used metal, plastic, and paper

I only remember the switch from paper ones to the the plastic ones when I was a deacon. I think it was a cost saving measure to save the church $$$. It created a Hell of a racket from kids squashing the cups. Even the older members were crushing the plastic cups. Of course, we as deacons were blamed for the extra noise. The teachers saw an opportunity to create more havoc by wedging the cups so tightly in the tray that it caused the water to fly out of the cup. I think plastic cups went away when SM became too noisy for my stake presidency.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2019 01:24PM by messygoop.

I was a deacon when the plastic paper switch happened.

I will soon be 70. I was taken to church from birth so that was going back to the 50's. Sorry but I don't ever remember glass sacrament cups. It seems like a nightmare and epidemic causing situation if that were true. And, yes, who in the world would be in charge of keeping those things clean? Yikes!

My father converted in the 1940s, his brother was an Episcopal minister. He made the comment occasionally that the disposable sacrament cups Mormons used were better than the glass cups his brother's church used - no washing cups after church.

I don't remember ever using glass sacrament cups, I do know that they used small metal cups in my old ward long before I remember seeing the sacrament. I remember they were stored in the altar closet where we kept the supplies when I was a deacon. But they probably weren't used after WWII and I'm sure were not used after about 1963.

My grandmother was born in 1890, she told me when she was a little girl, they used to pass a large porcelain cup with wine made by an Italian family that lived in the foothills; everyone drank from the same cup and she commented on the big mustaches dripping in the cup that everyone shared the sacrament from. This was in Davis County, UT.

oh yuk!! and who knows what those whiskers had on them before sloshing around in the community cup. that is not safe or healthy and just plain nasty!! yuk!

A widow I home taught who was around 85 y.o. in 1986 told me about the glass cups that were passed around and shared among the congregation. She said she would rotate the cup so as to touch her mouth to a part that no one else had touched. I doubt she was the only one with that idea.

My parents remember a communal cup of water passed down the rows.

I remember paper cups. Then plastic. The folded paper ones would get soggy if the opening hyms was too long. Collapse on removal. Leave a paper taste in the mouth.

I had forgotten about the taste from the paper cups! Bleh

Not to mention The Cheerios in the wall carpets smell.

i think before rusty thinks of this, if he already hasn't and is just waiting for the go ahead from above,or from wendy, or from wherever, we can do this at home and we can claim we took our own sacrament before we left for church. part of the home church thingy......just a suggestion while waiting for old rusty to get the coming revelation.

think of all the little paper cups and the money it will save the church every week. in the meantime they can ease cultees into the cutback by cutting it down from weekly and go from there until it's a do-it-yourself-in the comfort of your own home.

sometimes i wish i had the stomach to go back and watch these fools. but i don't want to have a setback in my recovery. it's slow enough.

I do remember drinking from the glass cups a few times although I can't remember exactly where that was. It certainly wasn't our home ward. I also recall the clank and clatter that the glass cups caused.

It's not likely there are any really old oldies still around who would remember when sacrament was taken from one communal chalice but my mom told us that individual cups weren't always in use.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's not likely there are any really old oldies
> still around who would remember when sacrament was
> taken from one communal chalice but my mom told us
> that individual cups weren't always in use.

Oh, yuck!!!!!

[I get intensely squicked by this kind of stuff.]

I remember the individual glass cups for sacrament when I was a kid in the 1940s.
That was in southern Idaho.

just waiting on rusty to tell members to do the sacrament thing at home before they get to church......those little cups offend god every week, darn those offensive mormons.

still waiting on revelation to pass to rusty from wendy...i mean from above...like above in his delusional head.

The alcohol in wine kills germs. Also the silver of the chalice repels germs. Water from a communal glass would be disaster. Gag. Mormons never did worry much about germs.

I have celiac disease, and I was directed to talk to the bishop about taking the sacrament. I was supposed to wrap a piece of my gluten-free bread in plastic, and make sure it got on the right tray, and be sure no one took it. I didn’t want to put up with questions and confused looks. I asked the bishop how far the blessing extended. Perhaps if I sat veRy close to the table, I could keep the bread in my hand, and it would be blessed. He was not amused.

I remember the paper cups, and we kids would keep
Them and play with them.

Exminion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The alcohol in wine kills germs. Also the silver
> of the chalice repels germs. Water from a communal
> glass would be disaster. Gag. Mormons never did
> worry much about germs.
>
> I have celiac disease, and I was directed to talk
> to the bishop about taking the sacrament. I was
> supposed to wrap a piece of my gluten-free bread
> in plastic, and make sure it got on the right
> tray, and be sure no one took it. I didn’t want
> to put up with questions and confused looks. I
> asked the bishop how far the blessing extended.
> Perhaps if I sat veRy close to the table, I could
> keep the bread in my hand, and it would be
> blessed. He was not amused.
>
> I remember the paper cups, and we kids would keep
> Them and play with them.

It infuriates me when I hear about a member asking a church leader for a minor accommodation. The church used to have a gazillion bread and water trays. It wouldn't be outrageous to have a teacher assigned to pick up your bread (and it could have its own tray). As long as Bozo Bishop and any other stuffy church official is served first, then it's no big deal to have a deacon run the tray over to you.

In my ward, there was a sister that had suffered a terrific accident. She wore a prosthesis as her right hand, but it was a bit awkward so she did everything left handed. As a deacon, we were instructed to be mindful of her in case she was unable to safely pass the sacrament tray. Sometimes, she sat in a middle of the center pew and we as deacons needed to be vigilant in case the tray were passed back (they didn't want the sister to feel obligated to get up to pass it to the other side of the pew).

Too funny and smart kid! I think it only makes sense that you could hold the special bread in your hand and it could get blessed, and very dumb that the bishop insisted it be on the tray. Dum dee dum dum.

I remember metal cups replaced by the paper ones that would wibble and wobble as you attempted to get them out fast enough so that they still had some LUKE-WARM YUCKY water in them. I just hurried and drank it as a young kid and kept thinking that what I needed was some good, cold water (no such thing as the wonderful insulated water bottles of today that you could bring with you to church)

>> I remember the paper cups, and we kids would keep
Them and play with them.


I remember doing that. I would carefully unroll the rim and unfold the paper cup into a circle. I would fold it every which way or maybe make a flower with it. Then I would go back to trying to play a game of dots on the back of the program. God, the excruciating boredom of those meetings for a child. They seemed to last forever.

for a shut-in sister. Cannot remember why, but we laughed about It for years. She was awesome.

I remember the glass cups. My dad was the building janitor in Clinton ward Utah. It was our family responsibility to was the cups at home after Sunday
School service; return them before 7 PM Sacrament service and wash them again for the coming week. We also stoked the coal fired furnace for steam heat for each meeting and cleaned the church house for every event. It was about a 60 hour a week and payed $60 a month. It included mowing the lawn and hoeing weeds and even laying down corn meal on the gym floor for Saturday night dances. Luckily I had 4 brothers to help and we all spent a lot of hours taking care of the church.— for the grand total of almost $1 an hour. This was in the 1948 to 1952 time frame for us. Eventually the silver trays mysteriously disappeared. I only have my suspicion that a particular bishop made a few buck on them— because nobody dared investigate what happened.

I don't remember it (I'm 65) but I remember my uncle and grandmother talking about how when my uncle was a deacon, he had to take is rotating turn to wash the glass sacrament cups, meaning my grandmother did.

I do not remember the glass ones, and certainly would have swiped them for shot glasses.

I was a kid forced to participate in the Mormon madness, coming from pioneer stock.

These glasses look perfect for Patron shooters.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-MORMON-GLASS-SACRAMENT-CUP-VERY-RARE-1-1-2-Tall-SALT-LAKE-CITY-UTAH/362541652130?hash=item54692a98a2:g:zCwAAOxycSdR1e0G:sc:USPSFirstClass!59501!US!-1

Brazilian wards/branches in the late 1960s used glass cups. They were taken home by someone and hand washed. Not that big a deal.

In the US , I only remember paper cups. I guess I left before plastic!

Deacons: Pass the sacrament to the members
Teachers: Prepare the trays and clean the trays
Priests: Bless the sacrament

I remember the glass cups. But we didn't have them in our ward. Occasionally, when visiting some of the older, well-established wards (when visiting relatives), they were still using glass cups. Probably none of them do anymore.

It was always the "Teachers" responsibility to prepare the trays and then, after sacrament meeting was over, to clean everything up and put them back on the shelves in the sacrament preparation room.

For the heavily lipstick-stained cups, we sometimes made a game out of trying to match the cup to the lipstick lady. There were usually only about 4 or 5 usual suspects who used heavy lipstick, so it was a viable game.

I remember the glass cups back in the 90s but that's because I was in an old building with one of the original wards of the church from 1852. The old relics were kept in the sacrament room. I thought they were way cool and wondered why we don't use them. There were also more ornate sacrament trays that were never used either.

My grandfather told me of the days when everyone drank out of one cup. And his father tripped and spilled it everywhere and got a severe scolding from the bishop for it.

When I was a kid our cups were paper and our bread had crust.
When I was a teen our cups were plastic and our bread had no crust.

I believe they ended the communal chalice at the time of the flu pandemic in 1918 or thereabounts.

Can't-help-you-on-the-clean-up-though-ly yrs,

S

I'm 70, so I was serving sacrament in 1960-62. Our cups were waxed paper and the trays were heavy chromed steel.

Thanks for the information.

well OPie ~


in ancient times ~

ziller remembers that Father Moroni taught the Nephites to make little hardened clay cups for the sacrament ~

they were produced from natural clay dug up from the hills surrounding Hill Cumorah ~

then these tiny sacrament cups were fired in kilns fashioned after the manner of those used by their Father Nephi, son of Lehi, to make steel in the deserts of Arabia ~

today Apostates can still find pieces of these ancient clay sacrament cups by sifting through the dirt in and around the site where the Hill Cumorah Pageants once used to be performed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints near Palmyra, New York, U. S. America ~

any Apostate can just imagine the cacophony these little clay cups made when being slung around and handled by a bunch of pre-pubescent Nephite Deacons, Teachers and Priests as they attempted to remember and honor MormonJesus™ with crowds of war-weary beleaguered Nephite faithful ~

it is said that the President of the Nephite Teacher's Quorum used to wash the little clay cups by soaking them overnight in pristine flowing streams of water deep in the jungle ~

finally ~

b4 their eventual total slaughter and defeat ~

to save time and tithing money ~

Father Moroni allowed them to drink the sacramental grape juice (NOT WINE) out of the skulls of slain Lamanite warriors ~


inthenameofcheeseandrice ~

amem ~

Tres clever.

Une questionne, why is it that only Aposootates are the ones who can find bits of these special clay cups. Is that because they are so smart and blessed and wonderful beyond words? I'll bet that's the case.

As a teen I had to sometimes go to church in the very old LDS building in the Elysian Park section of LA. It had a glassed in cry room mezzanine, and a lot of very old features. It also had very old style sacrament trays. The sacrament water was a fairly large round chrome tray with a handle. It was full of holes for the small paper cups, but had no area or hopper to put the used cups. So you would drink the water and hold onto the cup. Then you would pass them to the right, and people would stack them into each other, then a deacon would come by and collect the columns of stacked cups. It was kind of gross, really.

I remember visiting an older ward in the late 1960s in the UK that had glass sacrament cups. I thought they were neat.

I remember glass cups--but can't quite place when they stopped. My family lived in an old ward in SLC--Sugarhouse Ward. Fuzzy memories.

I was living in the downtown Vienna Austria ward when I was 14 (mid-1960s) and became a teacher. Every week, my fellow teachers and I were tasked with washing little glass sacrament cups in the kitchen. Then we dried them and put them in circular tiered metal trays. We filled the cups with room temperature water and then carried them to the sacrament table.

Eventually these were replaced by rectangular trays and paper cups.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2019 11:41PM by PapaKen.