The followers of Jesus were devoted to: 
- The teaching of the apostles
- The communal life
- The breaking of bread
- So Eucharist is about:
- Purpose
- People
- Passover
********************
Why did God create you? Why did God create anything? He didn’t need to. God is perfectly content and does not “need” to do anything at all. Vatican I however, felt that this was an important question so they answered it thus: - God creates to manifest His goodness.
Did you ever notice that when someone is in a good mood, they don’t hide it. They express it to others, often through celebration large and small, formal and informal.
- Goodness always spreads out. It bubbles up. It is effusive.
- God doesn’t not just create and then just go away and leave the world alone.
- God wants to be intimately wound up in the world he created, AND
- God wants to spread goodness around. In speaking to our FIRST COMMUNION CANDIDATES, we need to emphasize that God created them because he was in a good mood that day (Just ask mom and dad and your family if they are happier today than they were before you existed). God wants you to do the same - to go out and create some “goodness” all around you.
So Eucharist is first about PURPOSE.
*********************
What IS the Catholic Church?
The church is NOT a pious congregation of nice, like-minded people dedicated to the memory and teachings of Jesus.
The Church is NOT rites and rituals and rules and regulations.
- It’s a relationship. And it’s not only a relationship - it’s a transformational relationship.
- The Church is about bringing together the scattered. It’s about healing people.
It’s about overcoming challenges of life. It’s about remaking broken people from within … - …and calling them to go out and remake a broken world around them.
- So the Eucharist is also about PEOPLE.
*********************
The world will tell you that you can do this by yourself. The world will tell you that you don’t need a church; you don’t need religion; you don’t need any of this stuff.
There are 2 reasons why this is not correct:
- You and I aren’t perfect. We need something - or someone - else outside of ourselves to help us improve. NOBODY can do this on their own. We need parents and friends and coaches and doctors and mentors and… and… and…. to help us improve and become transformed. The Eucharist is about transformation. It is about allowing ourselves to be transformed from within by the one person who can do it the best - Jesus
- It is SO important - to Christ - that we have a relationship with Him, that HE set up the way and the means for us to have this relationship - The Eucharist. JESUS (not the Church nor the bishops nor the priests or sisters nor Pope) is the one who said that we need to do it this way. Once, when speaking to the Jews, Christ said: (“Look) …unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall have no life in you.”So the Eucharist is also about Passover. It is about entering into a transforming relationship with Christ and getting fed around a table.THIS is how, not we - but CHRIST - defines what it means to be Roman Catholic.
Adults have defined age 7 as the “age of reason.” Children of this age usually have the ability to know what to do and what not to do; what is right and what is wrong.
I Cor 13:11 states “When I was a child, I acted like a child and I spoke like a child. But when I became an adult, I put childish things aside.”
First Communion is about starting to become an adult member of our faith community. We rejoice that our FIRST COMMUNION CANDIDATES now begin to receive Christ in a more personal way. And that this relationship with Christ from this day forward will grow and become even more special.
Audio version of the homily can be found here:
Fr. Charles Zlock 