Author: cnorman

Fifth Sunday of Easter
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
	The season of First Communions is here, and invitations pour in as the new communicants, mostly seven years old, gather extended families for their first reception of the Eucharist. Recently, the celebrations are often on Sundays, in the regular gatherings of the faith community. There, it becomes clear that First Communion is meant to initiate a regular pattern of reception, and that there is to be a second, third, hundredth, thousandth celebration.
	Eastern Catholics and Orthodox children follow a different plan, since they are given a taste of the consecrated wine at their baptism as infants. We Western Christians delay until “the age of reason,” but many years ago, Communion was not for children at all. Twelve to fourteen was the typical time for Roman Catholics to receive for the first time, and in those days this was a transition into the adult world of work and marriage. The custom did not begin to shift to childhood until reforms set in place by Pope St. Pius X began to take hold in the 1920s. If you are going to a First Communion, you can give thanks that the table of the Lord is today open so much more lavishly than before.
—Rev. James Field