Finnian’s First Holy Communion
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| Ready to leave for Mass |
During the weeks leading up to Finnian’s First Holy Communion, he was bubbling over with excitement. On Mother’s Day, he came to me and said, “Happy Mother’s Day to you, Mommy, and happy quizzing day to me.” Fr. S. and Fr. V. were going to be quizzing the First Commumion children that morning. Fr. S. told me later that Finnian had done a good job and I shared how excited Finnian was to receive both his First Confession and his First Holy Communion.
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| Finnian and his Godparents |
On Saturday, May 17, Finnian woke up early and anxiously waited to leave for the church so that he could have his soul made pure and clean like it was on the day of his Baptism. As we drove to the church, he expressed concern that he might forget some of his sins. We reassured him that as long as he didn’t intentionally forget any of his sins it was okay. After he had gone to confession, he told us that he liked going and stated, “Confession isn’t bad at all.”. I think that he is looking forward to going again. Fr. V. gave a beautiful sermon in which he spoke about St. Paschal and his love for the Eucharist.
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| Finnian with his Godparents and their Daughters |
On Sunday, May 18, Finnian received his First Holy Communion. The Mass began with our parish’s May crowning and the singing of the Salve Regina. Fr. S. gave an incredible sermon on the Eucharist that brought tears to my eyes. Shortly thereafter, Finnian went up and knelt to receive his First Holy Communion. I was thankful to see him do so. Finnian studied joyfully, prayerfully, and well to prepare for this special day. I hope that he always has a great love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
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| Our Family |
May our Blessed Mother watch over my little boy and may God bless and keep him close to
His Heart!
Congratulations to Finnian, what a blessed day!!
Thank you, Meredith. It was truly a blessed day. 🙂
What a happy day, Christine. My son was also like you described your Finnian. He still goes to confession often.
It was a happy day. I wish that I had been given the same love for confession when I was a child. It is so wonderful when children understand and appreciate confession so much. May God bless your son!
Congratulations to Finnian, and to all of you! (everyone gets to share in the joy and blessings of a First Communicant!) You have to love his enthusiasm – 'happy quizzing day', so sweet!
PS Your lupines are absolutely gorgeous! Miss Rumphius would be pleased. 🙂
Thank you, Kimberlee. Finnian's enthusiasm was contagious. I don't think that I will ever forget his "happy quizzing day"
Miss Rumphius is the reason we have lupines in our garden. 🙂 We must "do something to make the world more beautiful." 😉
I remember my very first confession and some others I made as a little girl quite well. What a wonderful feeling after the absolution I had! When I got older I had no good role models in that respect. My father never went to confession (and still does not) and our teachers didn't tell us that you still go to confession when you are older, so I thought this was just for little children. (My mother is not catholic.) Only when starting homeschooling here and learning about the faith with my children, did I realize how important confession was. I could not make myself go in this country though, saying my sins in English was just like a language exam for me. So I waited for a chance to go to confession in Germany. When my grandmother was dying, my parents paid for me to come back to say good-bye to her in Germany. I had to take Veronika along, who was a nursing baby. That was my chance to finally go to confession again. During the long flight I thought about all my sins and what I would say. I had looked up possible churches in Bonn to find a place to go to confession to. I had to take Veronika with me and did find a church with brothers that had confession time right around lunch time. I had to ring a bell to get a confessor and first nobody showed up. I almost panicked, here I was, ready to go to confession, but no confessor! He finally came and Veronika was not disruptive so I had a good confession. That was a big "milestone" for me in my faith. I still don't like going to confession in English. My relationship to God is German, and the confession format in English is quite different from the German one. I do go now, but if I had a choice, I would always do it in German. My children say they could never do this in German, only English, although they are all fluent in German. Funny, how language is important, even here. When I was in Germany last summer, our church had no official confession times any more and the confessional was used as a storage room, so sad. It was very different in Austria. You could go to confession everywhere easily and people did.