Know That They Are Loved by God
It is a very significant moment for our children who are celebrating receiving Jesus in Holy Communion for the first time this weekend. Before today, the most important day of their lives was the day of their baptism.
They received the gift of eternal life and became children of God and part of the church. They exist because God loves them with an overwhelming love. Their parents promised to bring them up in the faith, loving God and their neighbour.
Knowledge and understanding of what we are celebrating when we celebrate Mass is important. I always remember Sister Joan, who prepared children for First Communion in my first parish, saying that her one aim was to help children come to know that they are loved by God. I thought of her when hearing the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
Pope Francis wrote a beautiful letter last October entitled “He loved us” (Dilexit Nos). It was “On the Human and Divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ.” He invited us to rediscover the importance of the heart, both in our spiritual life and in our human and social relationships. The Heart of Jesus is presented as the perfect model of unconditional and total love, which calls us to live an authentic and full life, in communion with God and with others.
On this special day, my one prayer for our First Communion children, is that in a world where everything is bought and sold, they will always have a sense of their own worth. May they never depend on what they accumulate to give them a sense of their immense worth. May they always know the overwhelming gratuitous love of Christ for them.
As Pope Francis wrote in the letter:
“As a Church we need that love, lest the love of Christ be replaced with outdated structures and concerns, excessive attachment to our own ideas and opinions, and fanaticism in any number of forms, which end up taking the place of the gratuitous love of God that liberates, enlivens, brings joy to the heart and builds communities. I ask our Lord Jesus Christ to grant that his Sacred Heart may continue to pour forth the streams of living water that can heal the hurt we have caused, strengthen our ability to love and serve others, and inspire us to journey together towards a just, solidary and fraternal world. Until that day when we will rejoice in celebrating together the banquet of the heavenly kingdom in the presence of the risen Lord, who harmonises all our differences in the light that radiates perpetually from his open heart. May he be blessed forever.”
