First Communion can last forever
The church of Nuestra Senora de la Guardia in Havana
Sunday, June 21, is Father’s Day, just as it was 45 years ago when I made my First Communion in a Havana church. Nuestra Senora de la Guardia was a Franciscan church in the next neighborhood. It wasn’t our parish church and I’ve forgotten why we ended up there that Sunday, but I remember my first Eucharist well.
Somehow my mother found a long white dress and veil for me to wear. It must have come from the black market where Cubans score everything that the government’s ration books don’t provide. Most likely it was a borrowed gown. I remember wanting to keep it so that I could play-act First Communion and bride games at home, but we returned the dress to whomever owned it. It was a treat to wear something fancy for a special day in a nation that was officially atheist and did its best to discourage displays of religious fervor. The fact that my First Communion fell on Father’s Day made June 21, 1964 special indeed. After all, isn’t Communion really a celebration of our Heavenly Father just as the temporal Father’s Day honors our earthy fathers?
I recall a long fast before receiving Communion in the old style at an altar rail where an acolyte held a paten as the priest placed the precious Host on my tongue. After Mass, I had a First Communion portrait taken, but I don’t look too happy in it. I was as hungry as a six-year-old could be after such a momentous morning spent fasting. The large crucifix the photographer had me hold was almost as big as I was. The feeling that I was actually a member of the church was and still is special. It’s always been a privilege to receive Our Lord’s Body and Blood at Mass, just as it was 45 years ago.
If we all really thought about the miracle of the Eucharist and how Christ shares His flesh with us through the mystery of the Transubstantiation, nobody would ever take Communion casually ever again. We would all fall to our knees crying with joy at the prospect of receiving Christ within us at every Mass instead of thinking how quickly we could leave the pew to avoid congestion in the parking lot. We would marvel at how Jesus lives within us and how scores of martyrs through the centuries have died to protect the Consecrated Hosts that atheists have tried to desecrate.
When I was an Extraordinary Minister a few years ago, we were trained in the proper way of disposing of blessed pieces of the Body or drops of the Blood that fall on the ground. We were told to always handle the Body and Blood with the utmost reverence, which meant dressing modestly, blessing children and those who cannot receive as they come before us and connecting with the other person receiving to see whether he or she prefers the Host in the hand or tongue. For the moment that the Extraordinary Minister and the communicant connect with the Body of Christ between them, Jesus is there to bless both.
When I receive Communion at Mass tomorrow in my parish, I’ll remember the same sacrament 45 years to the date. Once again it will be Father’s Day and I’ll visit my Dad, whom we’re blessed to still have with us. These days, Father’s Day also means two more generations of fathers: my husband, Kevin, is the greatest father in the world to our four children and our three grandchildren have their own young Dad to fete.
Once again, as it is at each Mass, it will be special to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Every instance we receive the Eucharist can be our First Communion.
