Monday 4 May 2009

First Holy Communions

Had a lovely day at the First Holy Communions on Saturday.

The last First Holy Communion Mass I went to was a few years ago for my God daughter. It was filled with well intentioned complications. The Bride and Groom don't have to read their own Bidding Prayers (ah Bidding Prayers-sadly cannot actually remember the last time I heard any, sigh and Paulinus has forever made me think of skate boarding ducks, so that's just as well,) so why get seven year olds, some of whom have only recently got the hang of reading to do it? Why not have them only concentrating on the task in hand? Grandma RIP summed it up by saying, 'It's not like it used to be,' and that's all she said. That was the strongest comment possible in her lexicon. Of the first 20 years of her life, 15 were spent in convents, so bitchy comments, just didn't happen.

Blah, blah etc. Which is all to say, if you are making you First Holy Communion, that's all you should be concentrating on and we could probably apply that to the rest of us too. Fussing over other stuff, is ...fussing.

8 comments:

Ches said...

I still remember my First Holy Communion, being led up there with the others to read out the bidding prayers, and my knees knocking together like a pair of maracas!

leutgeb said...

You poor dear!

Ches said...

'S alright. My knees couldn't be heard over the rattle of tambourines!


(okay, I made that up ;-)

berenike said...

We've just had some - the children then come to Mass every day for the next week. About fifty of them I think, another class makes its First Communion this Sunday. I was immensely impressed that a number of them could put their hands up to answer the question "what is the oldest prayer to have survived, apart from the Hail Mary and the Our Father?" I didn't know that till I was about 20.

madame evangelista said...

Ok Berenike, I give in - what *is* the oldest prayer to have survived apart from the Hail Mary and the Our Father?

Anonymous said...

"We fly to your protection"/sub tuum praesidium

leutgeb said...

Maracas, tambourines...

We sang, 'Jesus, thou art coming,' on Sat which we sang at my First Holy Communion in 1978. Same organist too!

Berenike, that sounds great.

Madame E, thanks for checking. Saved me asking the question.

Ben Trovato said...

Not sure about the way you've phrased that Oldest Prayer thing...

What about the Nunc Dimittis and all the other prayers lifted straight from scripture?

My understanding is that the Sub tuum praesidium is the oldest extant prayer to Our Lady (predating the full Ave Maria, only the first half of which is from sctripture).

But I could be wrong (stranger things have happened, though rarely...)