Remember your First Communion?
By Andrew Domingo
June 18, 2017
June 18, 2017
Do you remember the time when you received your first Holy Communion? I’m sure many of us during childhood, looked up curiously to our elders eating something during the latter part of the mass. We asked them what they were eating and lining up for. They would most certainly respond Katawan ni Kristo or the Body of Christ. As a kid asking that question and receiving that answer, I was dumbfounded that we can eat Christ’s body. Isn’t that cannibalism? But we were later told through proper catechism that the sacred species appear to us as bread and wine but substantially are really the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Theology calls it transubstantiation.
Let’s go back again to the time before we can receive communion. Being left sitting on the church pew and observing the people (including my parents and brothers) receiving their hosts, made me a little jealous and left out too back then. I felt like I’m not yet a full member of the community back then. So I really looked forward to the day when I can regularly line up and receive communion. That is why my first communion was greatly memorable for me. At last I tasted what they were tasting every mass. I can now receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Finally I don’t have to put up with eating eggnog and pacencia biscuits that are our “mock hosts” during our first communion practices. My first communion felt like a victory for me. I felt a belonging to Christ and to the Church.
On the following masses after my First Holy Communion, I still get the feeling of excitement receiving the host. But after several times, I lost that eagerness and excitement. I felt its regularity already. I’ve done it so habitually that lining up and receiving communion just seemed like a part of a program. Yes I still pray earnestly after receiving Him. Yes I believe that Christ is truly in the species of bread and wine. But still, the enthusiasm and eagerness was for me at its peak when I was a child. Maybe that is why Christ exhorted us to be like children – because they see things differently than adults do.
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Jesus, in today’s gospel passage from St. John tells us:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.”
Dear friends, let us remember who and what we receive every time we consume the sacred hosts. Let us be truly grateful and joyful that Jesus Christ freely gave us his own body and blood for our redemption. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Let us believe in Him. Let us believe that we are changed every time we receive Him. Let us believe in our goodness and to the goodness of others who like us receive this precious gift.
Despite the others’ doubt (and sometimes we ourselves too!) that we truly receive the Body and Blood of Christ, let us remain steadfast in our faith that Jesus nourishes us in this mysterious sacrament he gave us.
St. Thomas Aquinas said,
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.
To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
I end this reflection with an exhortation from St. Benedict of Nursia to his brother monks,
Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ,
and may He lead us all together to everlasting life.
Let’s go back again to the time before we can receive communion. Being left sitting on the church pew and observing the people (including my parents and brothers) receiving their hosts, made me a little jealous and left out too back then. I felt like I’m not yet a full member of the community back then. So I really looked forward to the day when I can regularly line up and receive communion. That is why my first communion was greatly memorable for me. At last I tasted what they were tasting every mass. I can now receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Finally I don’t have to put up with eating eggnog and pacencia biscuits that are our “mock hosts” during our first communion practices. My first communion felt like a victory for me. I felt a belonging to Christ and to the Church.
On the following masses after my First Holy Communion, I still get the feeling of excitement receiving the host. But after several times, I lost that eagerness and excitement. I felt its regularity already. I’ve done it so habitually that lining up and receiving communion just seemed like a part of a program. Yes I still pray earnestly after receiving Him. Yes I believe that Christ is truly in the species of bread and wine. But still, the enthusiasm and eagerness was for me at its peak when I was a child. Maybe that is why Christ exhorted us to be like children – because they see things differently than adults do.
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Jesus, in today’s gospel passage from St. John tells us:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.”
Dear friends, let us remember who and what we receive every time we consume the sacred hosts. Let us be truly grateful and joyful that Jesus Christ freely gave us his own body and blood for our redemption. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Let us believe in Him. Let us believe that we are changed every time we receive Him. Let us believe in our goodness and to the goodness of others who like us receive this precious gift.
Despite the others’ doubt (and sometimes we ourselves too!) that we truly receive the Body and Blood of Christ, let us remain steadfast in our faith that Jesus nourishes us in this mysterious sacrament he gave us.
St. Thomas Aquinas said,
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.
To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
I end this reflection with an exhortation from St. Benedict of Nursia to his brother monks,
Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ,
and may He lead us all together to everlasting life.