Message from Fr. Karl on First Communions

Over the next few weekends we will be celebrating first communions. They will be different. In fact everything we do these times is different. These first communicants will be able to say “we received our first communion in the carpark”.

We need to look back at the early church and the missionary church before we complain. The church has a long history of adapting to different and complex situations.

• During penal times in Ireland Mass was celebrated on rocks in out of the way places.
• In England in many of the catholic big houses there were hidden places for the priest to hide so that he would be available to celebrate Mass.

All too often the building has been identified with the “church”.  This is heresy and false theology.  The building is not the church never will be.  We the worshipping people in our homes, in the car park, sitting in front of our computer or the TV are the church and continue to be the church while buildings are closed or are open.

In my time in Kenya I celebrated Mass under trees, along river banks, in mud buildings and in solid block buildings.  We were the Church wherever we gathered.  On Sundays and weekdays the people of God gathered without a priest to listen to the word and sometimes to receive Eucharist and sometimes without.  They were the church.

So over the next few weekends as we gather for these special first communions in the carpark we are the church.  As we watch on YouTube or TV we are the church.  So as we the church gather together in the carpark, in our homes and in the fields we give glory and thanks to God and we pray for our first communicants and for a cure for this world pandemic.

Yes God we need you on our journey.

Lectio Divina

See this week’s Lectio Divina and Children’s Liturgy of the Word here