One of the Biggies when one grows up Catholic is one’s First Communion. Various Christian denominations have different traditions for handling Communion (and even what it means), but for Catholics, one’s First Communion (usually around age 7-8, I believe) is a major milestone in one’s spiritual life.
Thirty-five years ago today … at St Joseph’s in Pomona, California …
The funny thing is, I wouldn’t even remember the date, except that I got a St Christopher medallion as a gift, and on the back was engraved, “5/4/69.” Those numbers are engraved in my brain, too (hey, when you read whatever’s around you, and you take baths, and that’s the only thing to read …), like a mantra.
I still enjoy and appreciate Communion, even if, in the Episcopal Church, it’s considered a miracle of Consubstantiation rather than Transubstantiation (the finer points of which are part of my Shrug And Don’t Sweat The Details brand of religion). And this day remains, in its very idiosyncratic way, an important date for me.
UPDATE: Me am smart. Me can do math. Me can tell that 2005 – 1969 = 35!
Uh … no. That anniversary was last year. This year it’s 36 years ago.
On the other hand, Scott reminds of something that did happen 35 years ago today.
For some reason, using the term consubstantiation bugs many Lutherans. They prefer the use of the term real presence. The difference between Catholics and Lutherans and Anglicans is how it gets explained. The Protestants who hold to real presence do so in a less speculative sense leaving the details to “mystery”. The Catholics import Aristotelian categories of substance and accidence via Thomas Acquinas.
As for myself, I hold to what is known as Dynamic Presence. That is, Jesus is present in spirit in a special way while we are partaking in the Lord’s Supper. In my opinion, this cuts the Gordian Knot of how Jesus’ body is ubiquitous and the nature of the elements. It also preserves the rightful sense that those who believe in real presence that the Lord’s Supper is more than a bare Memorial.
It is right that your first Communion is special. It also increases the force of the word excommunicate where the privilege of Communion is withdrawn.
The Protestants who hold to real presence do so in a less speculative sense leaving the details to “mystery”. The Catholics import Aristotelian categories of substance and accidence via Thomas Acquinas.
Which is funny, because it’s usually Catholics who fall back on that “Mystery” thang (and, I think, that’s a good thing, frankly). Particularly amongst the laity.
Of course, thousands of Catholic clerics over the course of several centuries have also had time on their hands to let them come up with elaborate theologies to define and explain and debate over all these things (which, when pressed, still ends up as a Mystery, but with much fancier names associated with it).
For me, the point is less precisely what sort of metaphysical transmogrification is going on than that the Eucharist represents a social and spiritual coming together.