Hello Again – well I finally have time to write up our First Communion services here on Andros. As with most things here, there were complications. One surprise was to learn that the Baptists here don’t baptize their children as infants, but wait till they are 12 or 13. They have a Christening Service to name the child as an infant, but the baptism is something they do later. One of the children in our program has a mother who is Catholic and a father who is Baptist. He is now in our RCIA program, converting to Catholicism. We learned that his daughter, who has been attending Mass weekly and has been in our CCD classes all year, was christened as a Baptist but never actually baptized. So, the week before First Communion we had a baptism.
She is a sweetheart of a girl and when we talked about her baptism she told me she was afraid of getting wet in front of everyone. I told her it wouldn’t be a big mess, but she was still afraid. I taught her that fear is not from God, but usually from the evil one. I showed her that whenever an angel appears in the bible the first thing they say is usually, “fear not”. I asked her, who would be the winner if she felt afraid of baptism – the devil or Jesus? She understood that and promised that whenever she felt afraid she’d ask Jesus for help.
Well after the baptism she pulled on my sleeve and said, “I wasn’t afraid, I was the winner, I beat the devil”. What a great kid. Here is a picture Ginni took of her being anointed with Chrism, and another with her God-mother after the Baptism.
She is a sweetheart of a girl and when we talked about her baptism she told me she was afraid of getting wet in front of everyone. I told her it wouldn’t be a big mess, but she was still afraid. I taught her that fear is not from God, but usually from the evil one. I showed her that whenever an angel appears in the bible the first thing they say is usually, “fear not”. I asked her, who would be the winner if she felt afraid of baptism – the devil or Jesus? She understood that and promised that whenever she felt afraid she’d ask Jesus for help.
Well after the baptism she pulled on my sleeve and said, “I wasn’t afraid, I was the winner, I beat the devil”. What a great kid. Here is a picture Ginni took of her being anointed with Chrism, and another with her God-mother after the Baptism.
First Communion weekend was a busy one. We were joined by Fr. Pio Galumalemana, a native of Samoa who is now the pastor of a parish on Nassau. Fr. Pio flew in on Friday night because all day Saturday we did First Penance services at each of the three churches, followed by the Saturday evening Sunday liturgy at the AUTEC base.
We began at AUTEC for a 10AM First Penance Service, then 12 noon for St. John Chrysostom’s First Penance, then hit the road for the drive to Cargill Creek where we had a 3PM First Penance Service there. Ginni and I had created a program starting with song, prayer, a scripture reading (the prodigal son), and a short reflection, then individual confession and a closing prayer – very simple. A nice touch we added was a box filled with sand and candles. After each child came out of confession they lit a candle. The image of going from darkness to light was great.
After hearing confession from 20 children in 3 different locations, as well as some of their parents, Fr. Pio had a full Saturday – but it wasn’t over. Now we drove back to AUTEC, where we started, and celebrated the Sunday liturgy – with 3 of our 20 kids receiving their First Communion.
Fr. Pio invited them up around the altar during the consecration. Here is a pic of us around the altar praying the Our Father.
AUTEC has a neat tradition of having the First Communion children barefoot. You can see that in this pic where the children have brought up the gifts and Matthew is on his way back to his seat.
Here’s the history of that tradition. A few years ago, as they were preparing for first communion one family could not find dress shoes for their children. They’re usually in sandals or barefoot on the island and the AUTEC store doesn’t carry children’s shoes. Off base, none of the local stores had shoes the right size either. The priest at the time suggested, “Well, if you can’t find shoes, have them go barefoot, its fine with me and they go barefoot all the time here anyway.” While a nice suggestion, the children were embarrassed to go barefoot while all the other kids would be wearing shoes. The problem was resolved when all the other children, to help them out, decided to go barefoot too. The next class thought this was really cool and they decided to go barefoot too, and a tradition was born.
Here is a pic of all of us at AUTEC after First Communion.
The next day was Sunday and the first service was at St. John Chrysostom. There were 6 children receiving First Communion here. With so many at this parish we had them do the readings, bring up the gifts, and the Prayers of the Faithful.
Fr. Pio invited them up around the altar for the consecration and here we are surrounding the altar with Fr. Pio and our class picture.
After St. John’s we hit the road again for Cargill Creek and our First Communion service at Christ the King parish. Here there were 11 children, from age 7 to 14 – and here you can see Fr. Pio with the children flashing there First Communion Certificates.
Our service at St. John’s and Christ the King was complemented by an electric keyboard (2 in Cargill Creek). Laverne Lockhart was one of the players and here you see him with his new daughter Josephine. JoJo will be baptized at Christ the King next weekend, but that deserves a post all by itself.
See you in Church!
