Friday, May 09, 2008

Partakers of the Divine

On the great Solemnity of the Ascension (which we celebrated on Ascension Thursday), 40 days after Pascha, the 4 kids who were baptized on Orthodox Easter received the Body and Blood of Christ for the first time and came into communion with Him.

Actually, I did not think of it and scheduled the first reception of Holy Communion for Sunday but one of them called me up and asked whether they could receive on Ascension Thursday. So, we prepared them to genuflect before the Sacred Host and receive on the tongue, etc.

We all came for the morning Mass of the Ascension which happened to fall on the Labour Day public holiday (as well as St. Joseph's Day, but that's another post). After a practice in the sacristy using unconsecrated hosts, we prepared for Mass.

In what we have in our control, we pulled out all the stops to maximize the solemnity of this Solemnity. Full complement of servers, etc.

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Once again, I'd like to highlight the bow at the 'et incarnatus est'. I think it's very important that the servers give a good example to the people by doing it and doing it properly, and together.

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But during the distribution of Holy Communion, Father surprised us by requesting them to stick out their hands, which we did not prepare them for as we expected and requested intinction.

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And another surprise, he offered them the chalice. Hmmmm.

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We taught Alvin, above, to stick out his tongue to receive Holy Communion. So when Father gave him communion in the hand, he stick stuck out his tongue when the ave himself communion =)

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Certificates were them presented to commemorate the day. They featured Pope St. Pius X who lowered the age for first Holy Communion and was a great promoter of the worthy frequent reception of Holy Communion.

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Can you spot the differences between the 2 pictures? LOL!

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4 comments:

Vidimusdominum said...

Praise God for our new brothers in the faith!

By the way, I'm seeing it, it looks like Immaculate Conception has made much progress in terms of liturgy and liturgical ceremonies. We need to persevere in prayer; beseeching the good Lord to grant that every liturgical celebration be celebrated worthily so that the believing community can worship the Sacred Mysteries more profoundly.

P.s. I decide to start a new blog with Wordpress [http://vidimusdominum.wordpress.com] after screwing up the Blogger Account.

God Bless,
Paul

Malcolm XYZ said...

hi there,

your blog looks great. i will have to come back and spend more time. i am just dropping by now to say that I am starting a patristics study group and thought you might be interested in stopping by some time. peace.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Patristiccafe/

The Hymn Selector said...

It's sad that priests are the ones who throws the spanner in the works of restoring dignity to the Liturgy. Nevertheless, keep up the good work and you are in my prayers.

Jackie Parkes MJ said...

Please update your link to my new blog...many thanks..