Need to know -- 2010 final
- 1. To understand the Eucharist, What does my child need to know? Michael Pekar (C) 2010 Introduction In the Roman Catholic tradition currently Eucharist is first received around the age of reason, which Canon Law says is 8 years old. Canon Law is the Church’s organizational guidelines. Canon Law requests that our children have a desire for the Eucharist. Anytime we come together as a church and pray and worship in an organized way as a community, that is liturgy. The Church has liturgical guidelines. There is a general principle involved in liturgy that basically says, “We need to mean what we say and say what we mean.” This especially applies to the Sacraments. An infant cannot say or understand anything, but our 8 year old children can understand and say a lot. For our children to “mean what they say and say what they mean” they need to know what they are requesting when they say they want to “go to communion.” If they desire the Eucharist, then it makes sense that they need to know what they desire to the degree that their age level can understand it. If a child is mentally handicapped, then all the Church Canon Law asks is that they desire the Eucharist and understand what they can. What should my child know (the minimum) before they receive the most precious gift of the Body and Blood of Christ? As a parent of three and as a person who has a Master’s degree in Theology and doing church ministry for over 15 years I was embarrassed that when I asked the question of for myself I came up with a very definite, “I not so sure.” The after some research I found that beyond immediate sacrament preparation books, which focused only on the sacrament at hand and assumed many things and the general elementary scope and sequence in every major Catechetical text, there were little in regards to a list of minimum requirements. Page 1
- 2. What I was really after was not a requirement list but rather check points, as to whether I as a parent had done a good job in preparing my child for their first communion. I was looking for basic elements of our faith that is really essential for a person to understand the Eucharist, (as much as this mystery can be understood) as a regular 8 year old child. One year I found myself looking at our communicants and saying to myself, “I hope they know...”. Most of the time there was an inner nod of “yes” to the things I was looking for. . I began to develop this list that follows This is a list of what I would hope every child (including my own) who receives communion for the first time would know about the faith. If they know these 20 things, objectives, (actually it could be reduced to about 10-12, but I put them in a sequential learning pattern) they will be able to mean what they say and say what they mean when they receive their First Communion. It is not an inclusive list, in other words I hope that their knowledge of the Catholic faith goes well beyond this list, but this is what they need to know to understand the sacrament.. To put it simply, the goal is to make sure that those who are receiving the Eucharist for the first time know what they are doing. Page 2
- 3. To understand the Eucharist what does my child need to know? THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT GOD 1. There is a God 2. There is only one God. 3. God is 3 in 1 . Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Trinity) 4. God can do anything God wants to do. 5. God created everything. THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT HUMANITY 6. God created us. 7. God created us very good. 8. God created us to love Him. 9. To do this, God gave us free will. 10. Since our beginning, we have had free will. 11. Since our beginning, sometimes we have loved God and followed Him, and sometimes we have not loved God and sinned. 12. Know the difference between a sin and an accident or a mistake. 13. Know the difference between a sin and not knowing that something was wrong. Page 3
- 4. THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT JESUS 14. Jesus is God and Man. 15. Jesus never sinned. Jesus had/has a perfect friendship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. 14. Jesus lived, showed us how to live, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and is alive yet today. THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT THE SACRAMENTS 15. In the Sacrament of Baptism, we become a part of the Body of Christ. In Baptism, a new friendship with God has begun. 16. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we confess our sins because we are sorry for them and God always forgives us. Our Baptismal friendship with God is healed. 17. At Mass, we will receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Everything that makes up Christ, we receive. Our Baptismal friendship with God is nourished. 18. Amen means I believe. THIS IS NOT ALL THEY SHOULD KNOW , BUT WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW BEFORE RECEIVING CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST. Page 4
- 5. Explanation, elaboration and hints Having listed what the children need to know, I thought it might be a good idea to express a little about why they need to know some of these things. I also thought it might be helpful to express a little of how one might go about talking about each topic. If you come can up with a better way explain it that is great. The goal is not memorization, but understanding of these 20 things. THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT GOD 1. There is a God Can you imagine sending a child to receive the Eucharist who does not know that there is a God? How can they say they want to receive God, if they do not know God exists? To know that there is a God is more than just stating that, “yes there is a God.” It is believing that there is a God. Talk about how you pray to God. Pray to God as a family. Talk about how you rely upon God in your life. In your family life do you live with God or do you merely talk about Him from time to time? 2. There is only one God. What we are after here is to know that it is not as if we believe in God A, and other people believe in God B and C and there are gods up in the heavens having it out among themselves. (This is very ancient Greek-like and ancient Egyptian-like.) Indeed, the revelation that there is only one God is not so radical today, but in Moses’ time, this was radical. The Hebrew people were in the minority in believing in only one God. Indeed, it took them many generations to go from believing that their God was the most important of all the other Gods to believing that the Page 5
- 6. other gods are not really gods at all. There is only one God period. For our children, it is important for them to know that there is only one God. We can also talk to them about how worshiping things like a cow, a bird or the sun may seem silly to us today, but ask them what things take their or their family’s attention away from God. If anything takes priority over prayer to God, worship of God, and following in God’s ways, then those things have become our god. As you talk about these things with your child, you can point out that these are in the 10 Commandments and go ahead and open up the Bible and find them in Exodus 20. 3. God is 3 in 1 . Father, Son and Holy Spirit At this level, we do not expect our children to have the same understanding as an adult of the Creed, but it is important that they believe in the Trinity. Let them know how we came to believe this. That God told us he would send the Messiah, and He did send Jesus. Jesus told us that He came from the Father and He is God’s Son. Jesus revealed to us that He would send the Holy Spirit, who is also God. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One of the things that sometimes get confused at this age is the eternal existence of the Trinity . Sometimes children will get the idea that it is like the following: there is God the Father, and then later God grew to include, God the Son and then later God grew to include God the Holy Spirit, too. This is NOT what we believe. This is how God became revealed to us, but God has always been God the Father, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit of God. Depending upon the child, you might read with them and discuss the beginning of the Gospel of John. 1:1-18. You may want to illustrate the Trinity always being and coming to know the Trinity slowly in an example like the following. You might say, “You gradually came to know things about grandma. First thing you learned is that this is my grandma. Page 6
- 7. Then later you understand that grandma is really my mom’s mom. Then later you came to understand that grandma used to be a child too. All of these things about grandma are true and they were all true when you were little, but you came to understand them gradually. It is not as if she was a grandma and then later poof she became a mom and later poof she also at one time was young. So too God was always God the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit.” Examples like this, perhaps you can come up with a better one, can help our children understand what we mean when we say that God is three persons in one God and always existed that way. 4. God can do anything God wants to do. OK this is simple, why bother with this? If we do not believe this, we cannot believe in the Sacraments. It takes a belief in a great God who can and does do anything He wants to believe that God changes this bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Sometimes we make our God too small. Sometimes people become small in their prayers We really don’t believe God can do anything: we put the laws of nature, or financial realities, or other limitations of our world above God’s ability. Sometimes we do not doubt God’s ability, but we doubt God’s desire to help us. God can indeed do anything and God loves us a lot and will do anything for us. As much as we love our children, God loves them a zillion times more. God can do anything and God wants to. God wants to be close to us and He wants us to be close to Him. That is why God gives us the great miracle of the Eucharist, which, once we begin, we can receive every Sunday. Page 7
- 8. 5. God created everything. A second grader will often ask something like, “Who created God?” It is really important that they understand that no one created God. God is the one who creates everything and gives it life. They need to know that everything that is good has been created by God, who is good. All human beings, all living beings, everything in this universe and anything else that is, if it exists, it has the “Made by God” stamp on it. THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT HUMANITY 6. God created us. God created everything naturally flows from or to the belief that God created us. It is important that our children believe that way back in the beginning of the human race God created us. We just did not poof up by accident. God created us. Read with them the two stories of creation. The Chapter 1 story of creating of man on the 6th day and later on women so that man would not be lonely, gets at the great truth that men and women are created for one another. The Chapter 2 story of God creating man and woman out of His breath and out of the dirt of the earth, gets at the great truth that man and woman are created by God and we are from earth stuff that was created by God and we are given life by the breath of God. We are alive because we have the breath of God within us. But do not leave off there. Depending upon how much we have shared with our children about the growth of children inside of a mother, we need to let them know that not only did God create the first man and woman, but God continues to create. All of us came to be because of a mother and father and God’s creative presence. It is God who gives us our first gift the most important gift of all, life. In our society’s “culture of death” it is crucial that our children know that all life comes from God. Page 8
- 9. 7. God created us very good. There are many important truths from the Genesis stories of Creation that we should know, but the truths presented in 7-10 are foundational. At the heart of many troubles today are people who believe that they are not good, or are not worth much, or are only worth what they can acquire in material wealth, or control, or fame. God created us good. We have an innate desire within us for the good. Deep down, we want to help people, we want people to be happy. God created us this way. Ask your child how they feel when they do something good or helpful. In the Chapter 1 story of creation, God created everything good, but creates us very good. 8. God created us to love Him. It is a good thing to memorize the great commandment to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. In fact, our children should know this. At the minimum, they need to know simply that God created us to love Him. 9. To do this, God gave us free will. We need to talk to our children concretely about free will. You say you love your parents, and when your parents ask you to do something and you do it, then you show them that you love them. If they ask you to do something, and you do not do it, then, with your actions, you show them that they are not that important to you at that moment, you do not love them as much as something else at that moment. While parents are made sad when their children disobey, they are filled with joy when their children obey. If children were robots, (some children love robot examples) parents would never be sad with their children, but they would never be Page 9
- 10. happy with them either, and their children would not really have the ability to love the parent. For parents to experience the joy of the love of a child, they must also be willing to experience the sadness behind a disobedient child. The same is true with God and us. God our Father, or as Jesus called Him “Daddy” loves us, and He wants us to love Him, but He will not force us. If God forced us, it would not be love. Read the great stories about freewill in the Bible to your children. Read Genesis 1- 3, Mary’s yes in Luke 1, and parables of Jesus the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:29-57, the Two Sons, Matthew 21:28, The Lost Son, Luke 15:11-32. 10. Since our beginning, we have had free will. The Creation myths of Genesis are a way of saying that, since the beginning, things have been this way. One of the major truths of the Creation myths of Genesis is that, from our beginning, God gave us free will to love Him or not. 11. Since our beginning, sometimes we have loved God and followed Him, sometimes times we have not loved God and sinned. Sometimes as adults, or as Church, we become so focused on original sin we forget about original creative grace. The Creation stories write about sin and our choosing to be separate from God and disobey Him and try to pretend that we are God, but they also write about choosing to follow God. Adam was not always disobedient to God. He did name the animals and supposedly did other things he was asked to do. But our first parents, who were given freewill to love God or not, did ,at some point, sin. Genesis reveals to us the truths that since the beginning, we have had a tenancy to sometimes follow God (Creative Grace , love and respect for God) and sometimes we have had a tenancy not to not follow Page 10
- 11. God (Original Sin, disrespect for God). This has been our struggle ever since. Do we love God or not? Do we respect God or not? Our children need to know that their parents, themselves, and all human beings struggle to love God. Sometimes we do well in the way we love God and others and sometimes we do not. When we love God, we are happy and God is pleased. When we choose not to love God, we call that sin. When we sin we hurt ourselves and others and separate ourselves from God. 12. Know the difference between a sin and an accident or a mistake. Sometimes at this age they confuse and accident and a sin. They need to understand that a sin is something they chose to do, or not do, that they knew was wrong and they went ahead with it anyway. An accident is something that happens that is bad, but no one did anything wrong. It just happened. Examples are numerous. You ran into each other, you dropped the cup, the cars hit each other. You can also talk about accidents that could have been avoided had they obeyed the rules. Then while it is an accident, to the degree they broke the rule they need to know to that degree it is a sin. If you hadn’t run across the wet floor like we asked you, then... if you did not play ball near the window like we asked you to, then ... 13. Know the difference between a sin and not knowing that something was wrong? A child needs to know that if they did not know something was going to cause harm, if they accidentally cause a problem, it is not their fault, they did not sin. They didn’t know that the pop-up on the computer would take them to a bad web site. They did not know that was a sign for poison. Page 11
- 12. The did not know that when soap gets in your eyes it stings. They did not know that jumping would cause the soufflé to fall. If they did not know it was wrong, then they did not sin. They should know some basic Christian morals. THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT JESUS 14. Jesus is God and Man. Remember, God can do anything. Jesus was God and Man, and still is. This is important. If Jesus is not God, He cannot save us and tell us what God is like. If Jesus is not fully human, then He cannot be an example for us to follow, does not know what we go through, and has not joined God to the human race. At this point, they do not need to know the ramifications of this belief, but believe that Jesus is God and Man. Can you imagine a communicant going to receive Christ in the Eucharist and now know that Jesus is fully God and Man? 15. Jesus never sinned. Jesus had/has a perfect friendship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. This is crucial. Jesus had to learn how to speak. Jesus probably made mistakes in learning math. Jesus never sinned. (Mary and Joseph had it easy in the area of discipline.) Jesus is the first human being to never sin. Jesus had and has a perfect friendship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit because Jesus never sins. Because Jesus never sins and Jesus is fully man, Paul calls Jesus the “new Adam.” Page 12
- 13. 16. Jesus lived, showed us how to live, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and is alive yet today. They need to know that Jesus lived and told us how to live in the Gospels. They need to know that Jesus, being obedient to the Father’s will, died on the cross and then rose again. Can you imagine a child receiving the Body and Blood of Christ and not knowing that Jesus rose from the dead? They should know a lot more about Jesus, but, at the minimum, they need to know these things. THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS ABOUT THE SACRAMENTS 17. In the Sacrament of Baptism, we become a part of the Body of Christ. In Baptism, a new friendship with God has begun. Remember, God can do anything. Can you become a part of your mom or dad or a friend’s body? No. The closest we can get is big hugs. In Baptism, we become a part of the Body of Christ. Paul’s analogy of Baptism is great here 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. Remember, did Jesus ever sin? No. What type of friendship does Jesus have with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit? Perfect. If we are a part of the body of Christ in Baptism, then we have the same relationship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit as Jesus does. Perfect. In Jesus’ body, we are united with God. This is a new friendship that God gives us. Remember, God can do anything, and He wants to do anything He can to help us love Him. Page 13
- 14. 18. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we confess our sins because we are sorry for them and God forgives us. Our Baptismal friendship with God is healed. You just cannot get any better than the parable of the Lost Son in the Gospel of Luke 15 to explain God’s forgiving love. Every friendship, even the one that began at our Baptism, unfortunately has times when we need to say, “I am sorry, please forgive me.” This is what we do in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If we are sorry and forgive others, God will always forgive us no matter what we did wrong. God loves us so much. The thing that hurts the most is that we allow our sin to separate us from God. God will always forgive us. 19. At Mass, we will receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Everything that makes up Christ, we receive. Our Baptismal friendship with God is nourished. There is a lot that they should know about the Eucharist, but it is essential that they know that, at Mass, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. Everything that makes up Christ, we receive. Remember, God can do anything, and He loves us so much. Jesus Christ knew that, even with being created with the desire to love, even with being in His Body that we would need to continually nourish our Baptismal friendship, so he gave us Himself in the form of bread and wine. Talk about what happens to a plant if you do not water it, or a friendship if you never see each other? So too we need to nourish our Baptismal friendship with God by receiving the Body and Blood of Christ every Sunday. Page 14
- 15. 20. Amen means, I believe. They need to know that this is a Hebrew word that means I believe. So when we put it at the end of a prayer, it means, I believe all I just prayed.” When we put it as a response to “The Body of Christ”, we are asserting our belief that “yes I fully believe that.” THIS IS NOT ALL THEY SHOULD KNOW , BUT WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW TO UNDERSTAND EUCHARIST. What if they are already receiving and do not know this? We do not earn or deserve any of the Sacraments, they are a free gift and invitation from God. Have them continue to receive the Eucharist, but have them grow into a deeper understanding of what it is. Growing in closer to God in knowledge, love and faith is a life long process. Page 15