First Communion

Today Kathy and I went to our niece’s son’s First Communion. Yes, the niece whose husband pulled a gun on his family this past week.

They had each child at the end of a pew and they marched in to take their places. The Mass was very nice, with lots of kids participating in the readings and the petitions. As I sat there and watched all this unfold, I thought about my own First Communion back in the 50’s and how I felt then. It was a fun time as we practiced in the church, getting ready for the big day. At that time, we were the baby boomers coming through the school system, so there were long lines of children dressed all in white going down the street to the church. I remember being afraid that the host would get stuck in my throat and for many years after, I would purposefully push it down with my tongue to make sure I swallowed it without incident.

Now I am a Eucharistic Minister, something unheard of fifty years ago. It is my privilege to distribute Communion at Mass. Talk about being nervous—on my first day as a Minister, I dropped the host twice, my hands were so sweaty. Even on the second day, the host still slipped out of my hand. These days, though, I am more at ease.

We had a nice party out at Kathy’s sister’s house. Max had fun with his cousins, the grownups had fun watching the kids. We had tons of food. We also had an out of town visitor: the mom of the gun wielding husband. She was staying at our niece’s house—remember the husband was not allowed to be there—so that had to be awkward. It turns out the mother started working on our niece, blaming her for the husband’s behavior. I would have expected an apology, or an expression of concern, but that’s not the way she reacted. She needs to get a clue—her son learned that behavior somewhere, it didn’t just materialize this week. We were polite, of course, and no one brought up the recent unpleasantness.

Our niece is not talking about her plans. She says she doesn’t want to make any decisions right now. I wish I knew how to help her.