Dear Christ the King family,
This Sunday, we celebrate our First Communion weekend. Forty second graders will receive the Eucharist for the first time! One of the marvelous privileges of working with children is that they have an innocence in accepting that what Jesus says is true. They have questions, but their level of acceptance is inspiring. They don’t have the “baggage” that adults have when trying to accept Jesus at His word.
In our school, we have the gift of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to help form the students in their faith. It is a unique approach where it allows students time to reflect in silence, a lesson that was presented to them. In the atrium, or where these presentations take place, students express their innocent faith through spontaneous prayer and artwork and materials that are made especially for a particular presentation. There is a sense of wonder and awe when they listen to the gospel or reflect on gestures made at Mass and their meaning. They ponder and ask questions, but not in a way that challenges or is rebellious, but with a genuine curiosity and childlike innocence.
Today’s Gospel reading reminds me of that curiosity and innocence that the children exhibit in the Good Shepherd Atrium. Jesus “presents” to his disciples a lesson about where he is going soon, and how to follow him there. He is referring to the Heavenly Kingdom. Yet, the disciples, despite all of the time they have spent with Jesus, still do not understand his mission. This interaction with his disciples takes place before his arrest, during what is called the Last Supper Discourse, a four-chapter segment in which Jesus addresses the problem of what will happen to the disciples he will leave behind.
The reaction of the disciples, particularly Thomas, is childlike, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” We know later that Thomas struggles with trust and faith after Jesus’ resurrection. However, he doesn’t seem to be challenging Jesus in a rebellious way, but he has a curiosity and naive wonderment about what Jesus means by his words. “I will come back again, so that where I am, you also may be. Where I am going you know the way… I am the way and the truth and life.” Perhaps his disciples are frightened, bewildered or just plain do not understand what he is saying.
Jesus puts it very simply. He is asking his disciples to trust him, as a child trusts a teacher or parent. He will lead the way; just follow him. How do we do that? Jesus provides a simple recipe, once again: believe in him and believe that the Father dwells in him and he is in the Father. The more we live out our faith through prayer, spending time in silence contemplating the Sacred Word, and by receiving Him in the Eucharist, the easier it is to believe and follow Jesus. Prayer gives us the opportunity to listen in silence to the lesson God is trying to teach us. The Eucharist gives us the grace to believe, as long as we approach it with childlike trust and faith like our First Communicants; the faith and trust that Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. Jesus asks us to take Him at His word and trust Him in a childlike way and leave behind the baggage of adulthood.
Blessings,
Teresa Oross
Sacramental Prep/Becoming Catholic (OCIA)
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