May 15, 2011: Fourth Sunday of Easter (A) - 1st Communion Mass
(To the kids )How many of you own a Gameboy? How many hours a day do you play on it? How many hours do you spend time on the computer? How difficult is it for you to pull away from playing Gameboy or from the computer when your mom or dad asks you to do something? It’s not easy, is it? For us the games and the things that we see on our computers are so real.
Yet there is someone more real than the games we play or the images we see on a screen. You will meet a very real person in a special way right here today. Who is that? (Jesus.) Many of your parents, grandparents, and relatives also met Jesus in a special way on their First Communion Day. One of the parents remembered her First Communion this way.
“The morning of my first Communion, I remember waking up at 4 o’clock and waking up my mother. She said, ‘Elissa, it’s four o’clock! We don’t have to get up yet.’ I said, ‘But Mommy, if I get ready now, I can get to receive Communion sooner.’ The sisters taught us that this was really Jesus. It was a very exciting moment in my life. [Years later, after I had abandoned religion] a friend invited me to a retreat with her church community, and the experience I had in my First Communion came back. Everything flooded back. Christ was real. God was real. And you finally understood that God loved you.”
Today is not your first time to meet Jesus because we know that it was on the day of your baptism that Jesus first came into your life. Have you ever asked your mom and dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and teachers how they met Jesus? You should. Through the years, they have been learning about Jesus and discovering how much He loves them by attending mass and reading scripture. All the moms and dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and teachers have a great responsibility toward you. They have the responsibility of making Jesus real to you, and you will learn how to love like Jesus from the way your parents love the people around them. Remember that Jesus died for you and for each one of us here. His love for each of us is so great that He wants to be with us always. He is with us through the scriptures and the gathering of community, but especially in the Eucharist we receive today.
The Eucharist may look like bread but it is no longer bread. We know what bread tastes like because we eat bread at our dinner tables. Eating the bread gives us energy to go out and play with our friends. Similarly, when we eat the Eucharist at the communion table, our hearts are filled with Jesus' love and that love gives us the strength to love others. We will grow in this love by getting to know Jesus. When we want to get to know a friend, we spend time talking and playing with that friend. To get to know Jesus, we need to spend time with Him...by praying our prayers and by receiving Him into our hearts when we come to communion.
Did you know that all of Heaven rejoices today? Your parents and friends should rejoice for you and for themselves because each time we come to God's house we grow closer to Jesus. Each time we are kind to our brothers and sisters, or friends or strangers we are becoming more like Jesus. Yes, all of heaven rejoices because you will meet Jesus in a very special way when we receive Communion at this mass today.
