First Communion Today...and in 1956

First Communion Season is upon us, and last Saturday night, April 18, our 5 PM Saturday Mass—the liturgy Margaret and I attend every week--was designated as one of several observances of First Communion for children in my parish. As you might expect, Mass on Saturday led to full-blown mental playback of my First Communion in 1956. I wish I could say they gave me goosebumps, but in truth my First Communion was a major disappointment. Even today the sting of disappointment is still felt as clearly as it was 70 years ago.
 
I attended Catholic school in Buffalo, so our catechesis for First Communion was conducted primarily as a school subject. The big emphasis was Real Presence, Jesus truly in the bread and wine—though back them we only received the consecrated bread. Drinking from the chalice was still a decade away. The issue of Real Presence revolved primarily around “messing it up” on reception day. We were instructed to keep the communion host away from our teeth when receiving, lest we chew the consecrated host which, looking back, sounded a lot like sacrilege. If the host stuck to the roof of one’s mouth, the idea of using one’s finger to dislodge it was strictly forbidden. The advice given to us on this touchy matter was “don’t let it happen in the first place.”
 
Then there was the matter of the communion fast law, which began at midnight the evening before. I honestly can’t recall if the fast law included water in 1956; my dad was in the choir and used to joke about trying to sing with a dry throat at the 10:30 AM Mass. But my home room teacher, a young sister, regaled us with stories about kids who had accidentally swallowed toothpaste or frosting from their First Communion cake on the way out the door to church. In either case, the errant child would not be allowed to participate in the First Communion Mass. Add to that the countless hours of rehearsal for the Mass, down to stepping on the proper tiles on the center aisle floor as we processed in for the Mass. [For all of that, I was told after the Communion Mass that I had returned to my seat too slowly and held up the students behind me.]
 
Unfortunately, home was no escape from the stress, either. My mother and I made a required appointment at the convent to choose what First Communion Mass Book and rosary my family wanted to buy. The humor in that: we weren’t allowed to bring them to First Communion Mass anyway. Then I remember being dragged from store to store looking for a white suit, a collared dress white shirt, white tie, and of course, solid white dress shoes. My mother was not at her best at the time, and in one store she muttered something about “my odd shape and size.”
 
That hurt, and it wasn’t true, either. [see photo]. But in “old age,” as I look back, I must consider this. I made my First Communion just a decade after the end of World War II. My father served four years in the medical corps before marrying my mother, went to night school upon return to the U.S. and worked as an accountant for a TV repair company. He was worn out after the War and contracted malaria. When I was eight, we were a family of five and living in our own house. Finances were always a consideration, and a First Communion event was not cheap. In fact, financially speaking, the expense was wasteful. First Communion suits and dresses were worn once, or twice if the second grade was involved in the Corpus Christi procession two weeks later, as it was in my parish. [My mother’s frustration with clothes shopping may have reflected a search for affordable Church ware.] Families were expected to entertain extended relatives and neighbors. Buffalo was a blue-collar city. My dad was one of few men on our street who wore a tie to work.
 
My First Communion class had Monday off from school the day after the event. I decided to wake up early and walk alone to my parish church for the early sunrise Mass for workers and seniors. With no pressure upon me, I took my place in line with grown-ups [there were no other children] and received communion in peace. I returned to my pew and talked to Jesus with my face buried in my hands, just like all the other grown-ups. Ever since then, I have memorialized Monday, May 21, as my first personal engagement with the Eucharist.
 

 
In 2018 St. Mary’s Press and the Center of Applied Research for the Apostolate released a landmark study, “Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics.” The full text is available on Amazon for about $8 as of this morning. Among its findings: the mean age when young people decide to disengage from the practice of the Catholic Faith is 13 years old, with some making the decision as early as 9!
 
When I received my First Communion, I was 8. Trust me, we will talk more about what runs through the minds of the younger folks in the pews…and the importance of taking nothing for granted.