Sacramental Moments

The early weekends of May have gathered many parishioners at Christ the Redeemer for the celebration of the First Communion of their children. The parish community is blessed with two celebrations of the Eucharist for these children, one for our English-speaking children and a second for our Spanish-speaking children. These celebrations, in the gathering of the children, their parents, godparents, and their families, allow us to see and experience what the Church is all about.

Such celebrations bring our theology and our creedal statements to a lived experience of the Eucharistic Assembly, called together and gathered in the Lord to hear God’s Word and to share in the Lord’s Table. It is a time above all others to remember liturgically. All sacraments invite this remembering, but the Eucharist is the prime moment for the Church to recall the saving deeds of Christ for all of us.

In the scriptural story of the institution of the Eucharist, we hear the Lord’s admonition to the apostles after the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. The admonition is clear to believers through the centuries: “Do this in memory of me.” We read in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians that “As often as you take this bread and share this cup, you remember the Lord’s death until he comes again.”

Remembering

The Eucharistic community remembers our redemption in Christ in the sense that we recall the past deeds of Christ, our present encounter with him, and our hope “for future glory.” The Eucharist, like all sacraments, is a moment in the life of the Church, and thus, in the life in each believer who participates in a sacramental moment. It is in these moments that we come to know the Lord and we also become the Body of Christ, the Church.

As a community, we do this remembering by publicly proclaiming and celebrating God’s Word and by sharing in the ritual actions of the Eucharist: taking, blessing, breaking (pouring), and giving the Eucharistic bread and wine. Through the prayers of the gathered Church and the action of the Spirit, we come to know the Lord really present among us as believers.

Family Memories

Within these Church memories and through the liturgy we discover family memories. These are the stories of faith within the domestic Church. It is in moments like First Communion that believers can recall their own sacramental moments throughout their lives. Parents, godparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles can pass quickly in their minds eye to their own First Communion and those of other family members. The celebration of the Eucharist by the larger Church provides a rootedness for the family or domestic Church.

The Eucharist is not just a psychological or nostalgic remembrance for believers. While a certain nostalgia can allow us the

luxury of remembering the white outfits, the attending flowers, the new tie and new shoes, and the family celebration of First Communion, there is more to it than that. There is the family rooted in the faith of the Church, there is the music, the art, and the words of our personal histories which allowed many of us to have encountered Christ at a very young age. From the graced moment of our First Communion, we have lived as disciples throughout our lives. This journey and these memories are as constant and consistent as the presence of God through our lives. The invitation of recent First Communions is a call to give thanks for the Father’s continual grace to us and to our families. In these memories we historically have become the Body of Christ.

What it is to be Catholic

Of much interest recently in the media is the experience of what is it that makes a believer a Catholic Christian. I would suggest that not only are our creedal statements, nor our moral stance, nor cultural expressions, making us Catholic, but also these very human, and at the same time, very graced-filled, family moments in our lives. Sacramental moments like baptism, confirmation, marriages have shaped our communities and believers within them. Through these sacramental moments, who we are, just as who we are determined in our family identities, comes to be in shared storytelling, shared singing, and in sharing in the ritual actions of faith.

Our world has changed, and the expression of the Church and community has likewise changed, but there is a consistency of God’s grace through it all. There is God’s faithful Word. There are the faithful actions of the Eucharist, in which we, like those who have gone before us, have and continue to encounter the Lord among us.

First Communion, like Sunday Eucharist itself, is a constant invitation to remember; that it is not to forget that we live and breathe as members of the Body of Christ. Through time and carelessness, we may at times forget, but these sacramental moments are a call to ongoing conversion and return to who we are in Christ. In this sense, our many children are a blessing not only to their families, but also to us as a Church community. They remind us of God’s love for us, of who we really are at best, and of who we are all together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Signs of Hope

The children coming to communion for the first time are signs of hope for our Church. They have been lovingly presented to the community by their parents. They have heard and celebrated God’s Word. They have been welcomed guests at the Lord’s Table. In their celebration of communion, their lives are forever transformed in their encounter with Christ. They have become intensely the Body of Christ. They are the Church today and they the Church tomorrow. We are blessed in these children. The children remind us of these realities as they accept the Eucharist. They gave their “Amen”, for they and we are the Body of Christ.

CDH