You're not usually supposed to throw back Holy Communion wine like it's last call at the local watering hole, especially if you're only 7, but Brynley Heidebrink just broke the mold. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports that the little girl celebrated her first communion on April 23 in Brandon, SD, with her mom, Stefanie Heidebrink, recording the event from her seat. The video, now shared online, shows an angelic-looking Brynley head up to accept the wafer said to be the body of Christ, then the wine said to be Christ's blood. What happens next, however, is what has since made Brynley an internet star, as she holds the chalice and takes not a sip of the consecrated wine, but a hearty, prolonged chug.
"I just kept thinking, 'Please stop drinking,'" Heidebrink, who can be heard laughing in the clip, tells KELO. The patient priest eventually starts laughing, too, until Brynley finally has enough and hands the chalice back to him. Heidebrink says Brynley had practiced for the big event earlier that day, and had seemed particularly curious about the wine imbibing part of the ceremony. "I told her to just let it touch your lips; you don't even have to take a sip," Heidebrink recalls. She's not sure why her daughter went full-on gulp, and it doesn't seem like Brynley knows, either.
"I said, 'Well, why did you keep drinking?' And she's like, 'I don't know,'" Heidebrink tells the Argus Leader. "I'm like, 'Well, did you like the taste?' And she goes, 'No.'" Heidebrink also tells Newsweek that Brynley was somewhat embarrassed at the laughter in the church after her huge quaff. Brynley's video has since gone viral on TikTok, and the rest of her special day went off without a hitch, with a big spaghetti dinner to cap it all off. "She ... ate her spaghetti and she slept really good that night," Heidebrink tells the Argus Leader. She also confirms it was real wine in the chalice, not grape juice, as some people online are speculating. (More communion stories.)
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