This week we celebrate with fourteen of our young people as they join with us at the table of Eucharist for the first time. But for us as a community it s also a time to reflect again on the gift of Eucharist in our lives and renew once more our commitment to a common union in becoming a community of bread that is broken and wine that is poured out for one another and our world. First communions are reminiscent of great devotion, excitement, new clothes, parties, and gatherings of families.
Later communions become common place and often thoughtless.
We are fed the Bread of Life, not separated from the whole life of Jesus, but as part of his life. Which means communion, eating is not enough. Communion only makes sense in the context of the life, suffering and death of Jesus. That s why it s essential to celebrate the whole of liturgy, the whole Mass which remembers and makes present the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In committing ourselves to being a Eucharistic people, we are promising that our lives, our loves, and our struggles, and deaths will transform us into being a life that feeds others.