Fred Sneesby - Observations on Culture, Faith and Politics

On My Daughter’s First Holy Communion

May 7, 2007

My seven-year-old daughter received her First Holy Communion yesterday. The significance of the occasion is unclear to me. It’s not that the meaning of the day has escaped me; it’s that the meaning is far too complex to hold onto at once.

Culturally, it is a rite of passage, an introduction into something that grown-ups and older children do. It is timed by the Church for the age at which it says children reach the age of reason. Whatever medieval thinker fixed the age of reason at seven years of age was indeed a very optimistic person. Or, perhaps, a hermit. For the sake of continued thinking about this topic, however, let us accept that these children have reached the age of reason.

For a good number of people, I’m not sure that First Holy Communion is a religious event. I admit that this is judgmental to say, but, after observing the congregation at the First Communion liturgy, I would guess that 35% of them do not attend Mass or receive Holy Communion with any regularity.

Now, it could be that by Church Law they are not eligible to receive or that they have a certain Jansenistic spirituality that instructs them to refrain from receiving Holy Communion until their death beds. More than likely, they have no compelling conviction pushing them to the altar rail. It is intriguing that, not possessing any deep faith in the Eucharist, they want their children to participate. Maybe, at some level – and I am not joking or being sarcastic, sending their children to First Holy Communion instruction and reception is an act of hope. For many people, life can be an unkind companion and grace is not always evident or experienced. Feeling outside of sacred space themselves, maybe people still hope that it will be different for their children. On the other hand, leaving aside the benefit of the doubt, maybe some people are shallow and just don’t think about these things.

I do not know what detail of the day will stay in my daughter’s memory. I made my First Communion 48 years ago and I do have an image in my mind of returning to my pew at old St. Edward’s Church feeling very solemn and also attending to an abiding concern that the communion wafer would not stick to the roof of my mouth seeing that those paper thin hosts were made from bleached flour and super glue and we had been instructed never to touch the host with our fingers.

Whatever the significance of the day for her, I do hope that my daughter’s First Communion will be another forward step in her spiritual development. Both she and her older sister, who made her First Communion two years ago, are holy people. They have a sure awareness of God and are in fairly constant communication with Him. Many, many times, too innumerable for me to count exactly, they have been sacraments for me, that is, bearers of grace to me and my wife. How often, through something they have said or done or by just looking at them and observing them, have I been filled with a powerful sense of the eternal! How often have I felt joy, peace, goodness, and, of course, love just by being with them!

I can’t say, then, that First Holy Communion is supplying something to my daughter that has been missing from her as an individual. To my mind, the Eucharist and receiving one’s First or Three Thousandth Communion are not spiritual realities for the individual alone. They are ecclesial acts; they are acts of the Church. More specifically, receiving Communion is an entering into the life of sacrifice and community.

Neither of these two related things – sacrifice and community - comes easily for Americans. Living for the sake of others and establishing bonds with people not related to us or like us are challenges few take up. They are, however, at the heart of what Jesus calls us to do.

Jesus comes to us in many ways. In the Eucharist, he comes to us as the one who sacrifices himself for others and who gathers people into a fellowship that is unlikely. This is his divine life. By receiving her First Holy Communion, my daughter is stepping into this life. Maybe her just having reached the age of reason gives her the freedom to jump in. With more time and experience, she may hesitate.

The Catholic Church is not worthy of her great faith and enthusiasm. The Catholic Church discriminates against her because she is female. The Catholic Church is more concerned about preserving the institution than preaching the Gospel. The Catholic Church stands by mutely while great disparities of wealth exist within the Church itself. The Catholic Church settles for less 99% of the time.

It is so hard to really be a Church, isn’t it? To speak and live the Truth. To practice the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. To share the Spirit’s gifts of Faith, Hope, and Love. To share Christ’s life with all these other people. It is no wonder that the Church fails most of the time. But now, my daughter and those other children have taken up the project as well: to live lives of sacrifice and community. And so there’s hope, that the Church may yet be redeemed.