April 28, 2024

This weekend we celebrate First Communions at both Saint Benedict and Saint Aloysius. What a wonderful time for us all to stop and reflect on the great gift that the Eucharist is in our lives! I remember my First Communion fairly well. I remember getting dressed up and being nervous about doing the right thing at the right time. I remember my classmates and others who were receiving their First Communion, I remember the party afterward with cake and religious gifts. I also remember getting money as a gift and for the first time being able to recognize the value of something and how that value increases the more one receives and the more one saves. This final point may seem a bit out of place; let me take us a bit deeper and I’ll show you why I even bring it up. 

First, however, I’d like to ask a question: did you start to make a list of the times that you received Holy Communion including your First Communion? A running tally of how often you received? I know I did. It didn’t get very far until I started to lose count, but the intention was there to add up the number of times that I received such a special gift. I know I’ve encountered others who did something similar and perhaps you did as well. Even if you didn’t try and keep a record I imagine you can understand the sentiment in a seven-year-old’s mind of keeping track of such an event. This points us towards the reality that our First Communion isn’t meant to be our last communion but rather one in a long stream of opportunities to welcome the Lord: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity into our being. Now, to connect this idea with the thought of receiving and saving up money. 

A quarter isn’t all that much, but around the age of seven, you begin to learn that if you put four of those coins together you have a dollar and if you get four more dollars you’ll have 5 dollars. You also begin to realize that when you have 5 dollars you can buy a lot more than you could with a quarter. If you’re reading this you probably have a good handle on how money works at this point in your life. The point is that there are similarities and differences between the accumulation of money and the number of times that you receive the Eucharist. One major difference is that when you receive Jesus in the Eucharist you receive Him in His entirety. What a wonderful gift to receive all of Him all at once! It’s kind of like a tidal wave of grace, there is simply too much there to take in at once. A similarity between money and the Eucharist is that once you have received there is an understandable desire to return and receive again. Greed lends itself to the exuberant accumulation of money, love however tends toward the re-engagement with a relationship, a relationship that you desire to return to time and time again. I don’t think it is a coincidence that we learned about both of these at about the same age. Unfortunately, many people think more about money than they do about receiving God. 

Two Parishes, One Heart,

Fr. Adam