Kevin Doherty, Adm., Parish of Clonmany
Welcome
How much money did you make?
This is often asked when girls and boys make their first Holy Communion. And it is a reasonable question to ask given that in Ireland there is a tradition whereby girls and boys on their first Holy Communion day are, for some reason, given money. And there are other reasonable questions as well, such as ‘What did you wear?’ and ‘Where did you have the party?’ For reasons like this boys and girls are naturally very excited about making their first Holy Communion. It is a day when they are made to feel very special, and when family gather, and when how much they are loved is celebrated. All of this is good and wonderful.
But here is another reasonable question that is probably not asked very often:
‘What, if anything, has it all got to do with what Holy Communion is truly about?’
Depending on circumstances the answer might be ‘a lot’, or it could be ‘very little’.
How might we tell the difference? Well, here’s one way.
THE ‘A LOT’ ANSWER
The day is called ‘first Holy Communion’. And so, a reasonable question to ask is,
‘When is second Holy Communion?’
It might be the very next day, or the following Sunday. And the reason we want it to be so soon is because we want with all our heart to meet Jesus again.
- We want to be filled with the love that only he can give to us.
- We want him to tell us again how much he believes in us, and we want to say ’thank you’ to Jesus for everything he has done for us — that he became one of us, that he died for us, that he was raised in Glory and that
- He now invites us to share in his Life, forever … a sharing that is at the very heart of joining with him in Holy Communion.
This is the ‘a lot’ answer because we know that Holy Communion is not about anything we have done — it is about what GOD does for us.
THE ‘VERY LITTLE’ ANSWER
There is another way to answer the question about how we celebrate the ‘big day’ (what it has to do with what Holy Communion is truly about). Once more, we remember the day is called ‘first Holy Communion’. And so, a reasonable question to ask is:
When is second Holy Communion?’
It might be the following Christmas, or at Confirmation, or never again. This is a common practice in Ireland — of putting huge energy and love into the ‘big day’ but having little or no connection with the Church Family after that.
This is called a cultural attachment to being Catholic, meaning that it has more to do with how our society understands Holy Communion than how our Church understands first Holy Communion. And because many people in our society do not believe in Jesus, often this kind of celebration (great and all that it is) has really very little to do with what Holy Communion is truly about. We don’t say this is a calamity … we just say that it is.
And so, we don’t think of Eucharist as something that happened in history, a long time ago, once. This may be our understanding, or not — but, for believers, Eucharist is the mystery of LOVE.
A ‘picture’ of this Love was given to us by a ten-year old girl (now) called Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. After her first Holy Communion, and with tears of love streaming down my face, she wrote about it like this:
This is what happens when all the joy of heaven and of Jesus come flooding into a human heart. I knew that I was loved. And all I could do was say to Jesus that I loved him.
OUR PARISH PREPARATION FOR FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
A helpful way of describing the preparation for celebration of first Holy Communion. is the image of the milking stool. The legs of the stool represent different parts of our Holy Communion Family.
We see the three parts to the stool — Family, Parish, School. And we need them all working together. Otherwise, the journey will not have the proper support, and it will fall over.
So, what does each part do?
- Well, of course the Family is at the heart of everything, and by far the most important. It is here that the girls and boys hear the story of love (and ’GOD is Love’) being They learn about the important things — being kind, and generous, and about faith and fun and friendship. These are part of discovering what it is to be a follower of Jesus, the Christ, and of being a Catholic.
- The Parish role and the School role, is to work together and support the family in preparing for the Sacrament.
In Ireland, the weakest ‘leg’ of the three has been the parish. For many years it left nearly all the preparation to the school. But in these changed times that can no longer be the way. With that in mind our parish has introduced another element to the preparation — one that is shown in other parishes to be enjoyable and helpful.
Once a month (from September to May) a weekend Mass is given over to the preparation for first Holy Communion. The girls and boys, and families, are asked to come along and be part of this. It is a wonderful learning and enjoyable time for the children, and everyone.
There will also be other elements of helping the children (and families) prepare, for these are the children of our parish.
Our hope, as your parish, is that you will be able to join us for this — and, indeed, help out a little with it.
For we remember the words of Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) : “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do something beautiful for GOD.”
But first, and more than we can even begin to imagine, we remember that
