Bulletin column from May 2, 2021

Dear friends at Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish and Saint Frances Cabrini Parish:
Praised be Jesus Christ! We are fortunate this weekend and next weekend to celebrate First Holy Communions at each of our parishes. Even with all that has been disrupted in the world and in parish life in the past year, by the grace of God we are able to reclaim some element of “normal” by repeating in these celebrations what is such an iconic part of Catholic life. Our students will process in to the church dressed up in their best outfits to meet their Lord, and in their simple innocence they will receive the Eucharist for the very first time.
It is a sign of the persistence and the vitality of the Church that in the face of so many challenges we still admit new members to the Sacraments. All throughout history we administered Holy Communion to people, of every age in life, for the first time. In some eras this has happened with a great deal of public flourish and fanfare. In other eras it has been completely in secret and at the risk of imprisonment or death. In some years the numbers of new recipients has been very large and in other years only a handful. It has been done by missionaries in newly-catechized territories, and it has been done by countless parish priests, in every territory around the world. It is done because all of the living members of the Church do sense the necessity of handing the faith on to a new generation of believers, and we know that this requires participation in the Church’s sacramental life. So we do whatever we can to help new believers, as well as existing members, to understand the importance of these rituals, no matter what circumstances the Church is facing.
These days the obstacles to admitting new believers to the sacraments include a pervasively secular mindset that does not see the value in formal religious practices. The protocols surrounding the Covid pandemic have offered a wide array of obstacles to sacramental participation. More and more, with Covid being a catalyst for what was already a factor, we face the obstacle of a wide-spread embrace of “virtual” realities that we mistakenly think are sufficient replacements for in-person realities. Religion is becoming virtual in many sectors of Christian life, and as this becomes more and more the case, we will lose what is authentic Christianity and authentic humanity.
So, in the face of all of the above, we should consider the celebrations of First Holy Communion of these next two weekends to be a true victory. For these celebrations, for our newly-admitted Communicants, and for their families we are truly, truly grateful. We will continue to pray hard and work hard so that we will continue to have more and more people admitted to the Sacraments as the future unfolds. The Church needs it, and the world needs it.