Homily on First Holy Communion- 2024 (L) (Summary)

Dear boys and girls,

I would like to congratulate you today because you look like princes and princesses in your shining, beautiful pants and shirts, dresses and crowns. You are happy and all smiles today and your parents, teachers and relatives are proud of you. They want to keep the sweet memory of this day by taking your pictures. They also want you to remember this day throughout your life by giving you beautiful gifts like small Bibles, beautiful Rosaries, shining prayer books and other precious gifts. My question is why are we all happy today and why do we celebrate this day as the most important day of your life? You might have heard of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor, who conquered most countries of Europe and wished to conquer the whole world. Somebody asked him the question, “What was the most important day in your life?” They expected answers like the day of his coronation as Emperor, the day of his royal wedding, the day of his famous victories. But he said, “The most important and the most memorable day of my life was my First Communion Day.” For each one of you this day should remain as the happiest and most memorable day of your life.

Astronauts who received Holy Communion in the Moon & space station:

a) Apollo 11 landed on the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969. Buzz Aldrin, the NASA astronaut had taken aboard the spacecraft a tiny pyx provided by his Catholic pastor

b) Astronaut Mike Hopkins is one of those selected few. He spent six months on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2013. I was able to take the Eucharist up — and I was able to have Communion, basically, every week. There were a couple of times when I received Communion on, I’ll say, special occasions: I did two spacewalks; so on the morning of both of those days, when I went out for the spacewalk, I had Communion.

c) Cardinal Newman: “What are four thousand pounds when compared with one Holy Communion?” d) St Thomas More: Each Holy Communion gives me strength.

1) Why is this the happiest day of your life? It is because you are receiving the biggest celebrity, Jesus our God and Savior, as the Guest of Honor into your hearts and lives, for the first time, in Holy Communion. Somebody very, very big (VIP)is coming to stay with you, bless you, protect you and guide you. That is why we have all these celebrations. Long ago Martha and Mary received Jesus into their house as a guest. Today Jesus is coming into the house of your soul.

2) The next question is, how does Jesus come to our hearts? Jesus comes to our hearts in the form of consecrated Bread and Wine. Do we see Jesus in the bread and wine? No. Can we taste Jesus or touch Jesus or smell Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we receive today? No. Then why do we believe that we are receiving Jesus in Holy Communion? It is because Jesus said that he would be there in the consecrated Bread and Wine. Nothing is impossible for God. So, Jesus is really present in the consecrated Host and Wine. Ever since his Resurrection on Easter Sunday Jesus has had a glorified body. In Holy Communion, we are receiving that glorified Body of Jesus. That is why we cannot see or touch or taste Jesus’ human body and blood when we receive Holy Communion.

3) The next question is why does Jesus come to us as Bread and Wine, as food and drink? You know the reason. We cannot live many days without eating or drinking. Food and drink are essential for the life of our bodies. In the same way spiritual food is essential for the life of our souls. And the Food for our souls is the Body and Blood of Jesus. That is why Jesus said that we will be spiritually dead if we don’t eat his Body and drink his Blood. Hence, we have to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. We have that opportunity every time we participate in a Holy Mass. Then, before we receive Jesus, we ask his pardon and forgiveness for our sins and with great reverence and respect.

4) A final question: What will we do after receiving Jesus in Holy Communion? First, we will invite Jesus into our heart. Next, we will thank Jesus with joy for coming to our heart. Then we will want to tell him all our needs and the needs of our parents, relatives, teachers and friends. Finally, we will be very happy when we remember that we are carrying Jesus to our homes and schools as Jesus’ mother Mary carried Jesus to her cousin Elizabeth. Because that is true, we will want to behave well because we know we are carrying God Himself in our heart and soul. When we are alone, we can tell Jesus living in our soul about our joys and worries, and about our parents, relatives, teachers, pastors, friends and their needs. We also need to ask Jesus to make us good boys and girls, sons and daughters who honor and obey our parents as their loving, well-behaved children and who behave well in school. Then we need to ask him to help us to succeed in our work at school and at home.

Big thanks to everyone: I would like to thank everyone who prepared these boys and girls to receive their first Holy Communion and to remind the parents grandparents and relatives of these children that it is how all of us in the family and all of us who are in the parish family practice our Faith every day – at home, with the neighbors and in our work – that is going to influence our children. Hence, we all need to continue to train them in Christian faith and its practice, not only by advice but more by exemplary Christian lives. God bless you.

Homily on First Holy Communion- 2024 (L) Full text

Dear boys and girls,

I would like to congratulate you today because you look like princes and princesses in your shining, beautiful pants and shirts, dresses and crowns. You are happy and all smiles today and your parents, teachers and relatives are proud of you. They want to keep the sweet memory of this day by taking your pictures. They also want you to remember this day throughout your life by giving you beautiful gifts like small Bibles, beautiful Rosaries, shining prayer books and other precious gifts. My question is why are we all happy today and why do we celebrate this day as the most important day of your life? You might have heard of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor, who conquered most countries of Europe and wished to conquer the whole world. Somebody asked him the question, “What was the most important day in your life?” They expected answers like the day of his coronation as Emperor, the day of his royal wedding, the day of his famous victories. But he said, “The most important and the most memorable day of my life was my First Communion Day.” For each one of you this day should remain as the happiest and most memorable day of your life.

Why this is the happiest day of your life? It is because you are receiving the biggest celebrity, Jesus our God and Savior, as the Guest of Honor into your hearts and lives, for the first time, in Holy Communion. Somebody very, very big is coming to stay with you, bless you, protect you and guide you. That is why we have all these celebrations. The next question is, how does Jesus come to our hearts? Jesus comes to our hearts in the form of consecrated Bread and Wine. Do we see Jesus in the bread and wine? No. Can we taste Jesus or touch Jesus or smell Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we receive today? No. Then why do we believe that we are receiving Jesus in Holy Communion? It is because Jesus promised that he would be there in the consecrated Bread and Wine. Nothing is impossible for God. So, Jesus is really present in the consecrated Host and Wine. Ever since his Resurrection on Easter Sunday Jesus has had a glorified body. In Holy Communion we are receiving that glorified Body of Jesus. That is why we cannot see or touch or taste Jesus’ human body and blood when we receive Holy Communion.

The next question is why does Jesus come to us as Bread and Wine, as food and drink? You know the reason. We cannot live many days without eating or drinking. Food and drink are essential for the life of our bodies. In the same way spiritual food is essential for the life of our souls. And the Food for our souls is the Body and Blood of Jesus. That is why Jesus said that we will be spiritually dead if we don’t eat his Body and drink his Blood. Hence, we have to receive Jesus in the Holy Communion. We have that opportunity every time we participate in a Holy Mass. Then, before we receive Jesus, we ask his pardon and forgiveness for our sins and with great reverence and respect receive him in Holy Communion.

A final question: What will we do after receiving Jesus in Holy Communion? First, we will invite Jesus into our heart. Next, we will thank Jesus with joy for coming to our hearts. Then we tell him all our needs and the needs of our parents, relatives, teachers and friends. Finally, we will live with Jesus in our hearts, remembering that we are carrying Jesus to our homes and schools as Jesus’ mother Mary carried Jesus to her cousin Elizabeth. We would behave well by doing good and avoiding evil because we know we are carrying God Himself in our heart and soul. When we are alone, we can tell Jesus living in our soul about our dreams, joys and worries, and about our parents, relatives, teachers, pastors, friends and their needs. We also need to ask Jesus to make us good boys and girls, sons and daughters who honor and obey our parents as their loving, well-behaved children and who behave well in school. Then we need to ask him to help us to succeed in our work at school and at home.

As your pastor, I would like to thank everyone who prepared these boys and girls to receive their first Holy Communion and remind the parents grandparents and relatives of these children that it is how all of us in the family and all of us who are in the parish family practice our faith every day – at home, with the neighbors and in our work that is going to influence our children. Hence, we all need to continue to train them in Christian faith and its practice, not by advice but by exemplary Christian lives. God bless you.

Blessed Imelda, the Patron saint of First Communicants: Blessed Imelda Lambertini had a remarkable experience of this love. She lived in Bologna, Italy, in the 1300s. She wanted to be a nun from the time she was a little girl, and she joined that Dominican convent at the age of nine, to better prepare herself for the day when she would take the habit. Her greatest desire was to receive Holy Communion, but in those days you had to be at least twelve-years-old to do so. Imelda begged for an exception to the rule, but the chaplain refused. She kept praying for special permission. Her prayers were miraculously answered on the Feast of the Ascension in 1333. After Mass, she stayed in her place in the chapel, where one of the nuns was putting away the sacred vessels. Suddenly, the nun heard a noise and turned towards Imelda. Hovering in mid air in front of Imelda as she knelt in prayer was a sacred host, the Blessed Eucharist, shining with a bright and forceful light. The frightened nun ran to find the chaplain. By the time the chaplain arrived, the rest of the nuns and other onlookers had crowded, awe-struck, into the chapel. When the priest saw the shining, hovering host, he put on his vestments, went over to the girl, took the miraculous host in his hands, and gave her Holy Communion. Some minutes later, after the crowd had dispersed, the Mother Superior came over to Imelda to call her for breakfast. She found the girl still kneeling, with a smile on her face. But Imelda was dead. She had died of love, in ecstasy after receiving Christ in the Eucharist. He had longed to be with her even more than she had longed to be with him. Blessed Imelda’s body is incorrupt, and you can still see it today in the Church where she is interred, in Bologna. She is the patron saint of First Holy Communicants. (E- Priest). Fr. Tony (L/24)

“Scriptural Homilies” Cycle B (No 58 b) by Fr. Tony: akadavil

St. Maximilian Kolbe says, ‘ If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.”

Additional anecdotes:

1) Lucia Santos’ first communion. Sister Lucia, the last to die of the three little visionaries of Fatima, recalls the joy of her first Holy Communion in her memoirs. Aided by her older sisters, she dressed in her long white First Communion dress, put on her wreath of flowers, and according to Portuguese custom, knelt and asked her parents’ blessing. Her mother told her to resolve to become a saint. Then Lucy’s bigger brother took up the first communicant in his arms and carried her all the way to church. Why? Not because she was disabled, but because they didn’t want even a speck of dust to soil her when she received Jesus.

2) Holy Communion in the outer space: Astronaut Mike Hopkins is one of those selected few. He spent six months on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2013. And though he was thrilled when he was chosen for a space mission, there was one Person he didn’t want to leave behind: Jesus in the Eucharist. Hopkins had been received into the Church less than a year before his launch. After a long wait, he was finally able to receive Our Lord at each Mass. Facing the prospect of being off the planet for half a year, he decided he had to find out if Jesus could travel with him. It turns out he could — and he did. In 2011, I got assigned to a mission to the International Space Station. I was going to go up and spend six months in space, starting in 2013. So I started asking the question, “Is there any chance I can take the Eucharist up with me into space?” The weekend before I left for Russia — we launch on a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan — I went to Mass one last time, and [the priest with permission from his bishop] consecrated the wafers into the Body of Christ, and I was able to take the pyx with me. NASA has been great. … They didn’t have any reservations about me taking the Eucharist up or to practicing my faith on orbit. The Russians were amazing. I went in with all my personal items, and I explained what the pyx was and the meaning of it to me — because for them, they, of course, saw it just as bread, if you will, the wafers — and yet for me [I knew] it was the Body of Christ. And they completely understood and said, “Okay, we’ll estimate it weighs this much, and no problem. You can keep it with you.” All these doors opened up, and I was able to take the Eucharist up — and I was able to have Communion, basically, every week. There were a couple of times when I received Communion on, I’ll say, special occasions: I did two spacewalks; so on the morning of both of those days, when I went out for the spacewalk, I had Communion. It was really helpful for me to know that Jesus was with me when I went out the hatch into the vacuum of space. And then I received my last Communion on my last day on orbit in the “Cupola,” which is this large window that looks down at the Earth, and that was a very special moment before I came home. (http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/what-is-it-like-to-receive-the-eucharist-in-space

3) Communion on the moon: Holy Communion reminds us that we can remember Jesus from any place. Apollo 11 landed on the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969. Most remember astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first words as he stepped onto the moon’s surface: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” But few know about the first meal eaten on the moon. Dennis Fisher reports that Buzz Aldrin, the NASA astronaut had taken aboard the spacecraft a tiny pyx provided by his Catholic pastor. (Aldrin was Catholic until his second marriage, when he became a Presbyterian. (See the Snopes citation given below). Aldrin sent a radio broadcast to Earth asking listeners to contemplate the events of the day and give thanks. Then, blacking out the broadcast for privacy, Aldrin read, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.” Then, silently, he gave thanks for their successful journey to the moon and received Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, surrendering the moon to Jesus. Next, he descended on the moon and walked on it with Neil Armstrong [Dan
Gulley, “Communion on the Moon,” Our Daily Bread (June/July/August,
2007)]. His actions remind us that in the Lord’s Supper, God’s children can share the life of Jesus from any place on Earth — and even from the moon. God is everywhere, and our worship should reflect this reality. In Psalm 139 we are told that wherever we go, God is intimately present with us. Buzz Aldrin celebrated that experience on the surface of the moon. Thousands of miles from earth, he took time to commune with the One who created, redeemed, and established fellowship with him. (Dennis Fisher) http://www.smithvillechurch.org/html/body_remembering_jesus_on_the_moon.html https://www.rbc.org/devotionals/our-daily-bread/2007/07/20/devotion.aspx, http://www.snopes.com/glurge/communion.asp

4) The value of Holy Communion for Cardinal Newman & St. Thomas More: One of the greatest gifts we have received is the Eucharist, Christ’s true presence, body, blood, soul, and divinity, given to us as spiritual food under the appearance of bread and wine. When the famous Cardinal Newman was about to convert to the Catholic faith, his friends and colleagues at Oxford University tried desperately to dissuade him. • One of them, exasperated, finally said, “Think of what you are doing. If you become a Catholic you will lose your job and forfeit your annual income of four thousand pounds [about $120,000 in today’s terms].” • The future Cardinal responded, “What are four thousand pounds when compared with one Holy Communion?” Another English saint, St Thomas More, Chancellor of England, had a similar conversation with a colleague who criticized him for taking time away from his important work to go to daily Mass. More replied: • Your reasons for wanting me to stay away are exactly the ones which cause me to go so often. • My stress is great, but it is by Holy Communion that I calm myself. • Many times a day I am tempted to sin – it is through my Communion that I overcome. • I have many weighty affairs to manage – and I have need of light and strength to do so well. • It is in my Communion that I find all this. These men valued the supernatural gifts of God just as we should all value them. (E-Priest)

5) Blessed Imelda, the Patron saint of First Communicants: Blessed Imelda Lambertini had a remarkable experience of this love. She lived in Bologna, Italy, in the 1300s. She wanted to be a nun from the time she was a little girl, and she joined that Dominican convent at the age of nine, to better prepare herself for the day when she would take the habit. Her greatest desire was to receive Holy Communion, but in those days you had to be at least twelve-years-old to do so. Imelda begged for an exception to the rule, but the chaplain refused. She kept praying for special permission. Her prayers were miraculously answered on the Feast of the Ascension in 1333. After Mass, she stayed in her place in the chapel, where one of the nuns was putting away the sacred vessels. Suddenly, the nun heard a noise and turned towards Imelda. Hovering in mid air in front of Imelda as she knelt in prayer was a sacred host, the Blessed Eucharist, shining with a bright and forceful light. The frightened nun ran to find the chaplain. By the time the chaplain arrived, the rest of the nuns and other onlookers had crowded, awe-struck, into the chapel. When the priest saw the shining, hovering host, he put on his vestments, went over to the girl, took the miraculous host in his hands, and gave her Holy Communion. Some minutes later, after the crowd had dispersed, the Mother Superior came over to Imelda to call her for breakfast. She found the girl still kneeling, with a smile on her face. But Imelda was dead. She had died of love, in ecstasy after receiving Christ in the Eucharist. He had longed to be with her even more than she had longed to be with him. Blessed Imelda’s body is incorrupt, and you can still see it today in the Church where she is interred, in Bologna. She is the patron saint of First Holy Communicants. (E- Priest). Fr. Tony (L/16)

Videos to watch:

How to receive Holy Communion? Watch this YouTube presentation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qdGkTdv4Dt4#!

Holy Eucharist explained: https://youtu.be/TMSiHGTBdGk

Addressing First Communicants: https://youtu.be/FxRucGlAdn8

Video: First Communion: A tour of the Sacristy and Sanctuary |https://youtu.be/bZ9qFHg4AoY

“Scriptural Homilies” Cycle B (No 30 b) by Fr. Tony: akadavil

Welcoming Children to the Lord’s Table: Suggestions for Parents: Keep the first in First Communion. Talk about the many future occasions when your child will take Communion with you.

Stress the baptismal connection. Get out the scrapbook and recall your child’s Baptism. Unpack the christening garment and tell its history: when and where you bought it, who else wore it. Attend the Easter Vigil with your child.

Involve your child in the sacrifices you make. Let the youngster help you fix a meal for a neighbor in need, sort through toys and clothing for gifts to the poor, visit a nursing home, add pennies to a charitable donation.

Explore the family of faith. Visit the parishes where grandparents and friends worship, the oldest chuch in town (learn its history), an ethnic parish, the diocesan cathedral.

Put a little extra effort into family meals. Let your child decorate the table for an evening meal. Talk about special meals your family has shared.

For the Rest of the Parish Family

Be attentive to the “high chair set.” Get to know the children who set near you in church. show them that church is a place where people sing and are happy, where a little one is greeted with smiles.

Watch for signs that a child is approaching First Communion, such as greater attentiveness at Mass. In your own way, welcome him, or her to the larger table.

Notice when a child is wearing First Communion finery, using a new prayer book or joining the line for Communion. Express congratulations, your pleasure that the youngster is joining you for Communion.

A family celebration: http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0495.asp

1) http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0495.asp

2) http://stlouiscatholic.blogspot.com/2011/05/sermon-on-good-shepherd-sunday.html