The Eucharist

April 27, 2014

Next month we begin welcoming our young folk to the Table of the Lord for the first time. The Cranberry Collaborative will have 6 celebrations of First Eucharist (3 at Sacred Heart, 2 at Sts. Martha and Mary and 1 at St. Rose of Lima). These are among my favorite celebrations in the Church! To see the children light up when they receive the Eucharist for the first time fills me with joy. I am also remembering Fr. Daniel Moran who would make every child feel special to Jesus and to him. He put a hand on each child’s face and tell him/her “Jesus loves you, and so do I!” Then I would see the face of Jesus in their’s! What joy!

 The Eucharist is one of the three Sacraments of Initiation, the other two being Baptism and Confirmation. In the early Church, Baptism was followed by Confirmation and then First Holy Communion. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith and is the culmination of Christian initiation. You may be asking yourselves, if this is true, why is Confirmation after Eucharist? In the early Church, the faithful would get their children baptized and then would wait for the Bishop to come around to confirm their children. This could be months or perhaps years between visits to the parish. The end result was that fewer and fewer persons were confirmed because parents couldn’t always get their children to the bishop and thus very few Catholics were receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Eventually, it was decided that to get more people to the Lord’s table that parish priests could allow the Sacrament of the Eucharist to precede Confirmation. This is where we are at today in most parishes.

At the Second Vatican Council, the bishops restored the original order of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. There is a movement in some parts of the world to restore the Sacraments into their proper order to mirror the intentions of the early Church.

 This week I would like you all to reflect back to your First Communion. What did it mean to you to receive Jesus for the very first time? What was it like for you when you first experienced the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Today, as we receive the Eucharist let us thank Jesus for His Holy Sacrifice and to pray for all our young children as they encounter Jesus on a personal level for the first time. And, in memory of Fr. Moran, who so loved celebrating the Eucharist with children, let us welcome each child as he did: “Jesus loves you… and so do I.” God Bless… Holly Clark