Heart to Heart

This week our young children will be receiving first Holy Communion, a wonderful time for the children in and that they will receive Christ in the most intimate way, heart to heart – LITERALLY.  

That is the way I explain it to children due to the fact that they understand only in a very rudimentary way that the host completely turns into the Body of Christ and the wine into his blood.  They understand it but again, in a very simple way, probably understanding the Eucharist better than us adults.  Children speak from the heart and they understand things that way as well.

When a child is scared it usually calls out, “mommy”, sorry dads.  The child knows its mother is present and when it hears her voice it not only hears it with his or her ears, but in its very heart, the child and mother are joined heart to heart.  This is the type of friendship Jesus desires from all of us and in a very special way continues to flourish in an even more profound way in our children who will be receiving Jesus for the first time.

As a priest it is amazing to see their faces full of smiles and even full of awe, and a little nervousness, but I ask myself when I see that if I still receive Jesus that way – simply heart to heart . . . heart to heart?  A good question for us all.

Fr. John