Jean's Journal: Do you remember your First Holy Communion?
by Jean Farrell
You probably don’t recall the day at all. This is because most of us were only 5 or 6 years old at the time. We received our First Holy Communion in Senior Infants (known then as High Babies!)
We made our First Confession in the dark confession box. “I didn’t say my morning prayers, I told lies, I was disobedient,” I told the priest, aged just 6. I confessed these exact same ‘sins’ for the all the years that I was in National School.
As a young teacher I prepared my class for their First Communion in 1974. At that time, the children still went into the confession box to tell their sins. I know this, because when we practised in the church in Finglas, I had to pretend to be the priest. I had to sit in his spot in the box. This was a strange experience indeed!
Would you believe that I put on my longest mini-skirt that morning, in 1974, for the holy occasion? We forget just how short we wore our minis in the early 1970s - even good Catholic convent-educated girls!
By the time I was preparing children for their First Communion in The Fair Green School, in Athlone, my pupils were in first class. This was in the 1980s. They didn’t have to go into a confession box anymore.
Nowadays, the children are in second class when they receive their First Holy Communion. For their First Confession, they go to the church with their parents. Priests sit around the church, in full view of all, and the children, mostly aged 8, approach the priest and tell him how they have not ‘shown love.’ The word ‘sin’ is never mentioned anymore.
The reception of Communion has also changed. When we were small, and for many years afterwards, all the children who were receiving their First Holy Communion sat up at the front of the church together. A nun led us to the altar. The priests had a ciborium containing the hosts. An altar boy held a paten under our chins. This was to catch the host in case it fell when the priest placed the host on our tongues.
Our six-year-old minds were full of rules, as we approached the altar. We must kneel down at the altar rails. We must open our mouths very wide and stick out our tongues as far as we could.
We must not let the host touch our teeth, we must not chew it, we must not let it stick to the roof of our mouth and, most importantly of all, we must never never, under any circumstance, touch the Holy Communion. We were taught that only a priest could touch the host (all changed now!)
At some stage it was decided that the parents should take their child up to the altar themselves. I have attended many ceremonies where this has worked well. Mammy and Daddy escorted their child up to the altar where they all received Communion together.
Last Saturday I attended my granddaughter’s First Holy Communion, in a small town in County Roscommon. I noted another change. Apparently some parents (lapsed or collapsed Catholics) no longer want to receive Communion and therefore do not want to take their child to the altar. This has become an issue now, all over Ireland.
So, last Saturday, I was very surprised when the priest told us that the children, about to receive their First Communion, would not come up to the altar at all. He announced that he would come down through the church and distribute Communion to the children, where they were.
The children, receiving for the first time, stood up at the edge of their seats. The priest walked down to them and gave each child the host, into their hands.
Personally, I didn’t like this. It took a while for the priest to go to each child. Those who had received Communion remained standing, as they looked all around them. I saw some children sticking out their tongues, showing the host to friends. It didn’t appear to be reverent or sacred in any way. I’d prefer to see the young children approach the altar, then return to their seat, kneel down and say their prayers.
I read the following in the paper. Separated parents were fighting over their young daughter, who was about to receive her First Communion. The child lived with her father and her other siblings. Her mother wanted the young girl to spend the night before the ceremony with her. However, the father wasn’t having any of it. The case ended up in court, on the day before the Communion.
The mother’s solicitor told the judge that the child had said she wanted to spend the night with her mother. The father’s solicitor insisted that the child had said she wanted to spend the night with him and her siblings.
I’m quoting from the newspaper report now. “The father said that he could bring his daughter into the court to tell the judge her wishes. In response the judge said, ‘If someone thinks that it is right to bring a child to court, the day before her First Holy Communion, that speaks volumes.’ The judge ordered that the child should be with her mother, on the morning. ‘At a very basic human level, this is mother and daughter stuff,’ he said. ‘After the Communion ceremony she can then head away with her father.’ He ordered that the child must be handed over to the mother, at the local supermarket, on the night before.”
The poor child!
jeanfarrell@live.ie