First Holy Communion - 4 May 2014

The First Holy Communion ceremony for 25 little children of the Parish was held on the 4th of May 2014 during the 09:15 AM mass. Fr. Joseph Martis, Rector of the Jeppu Seminary was the main celebrant along with Rev. Fr. Peter D’souza, Parish Priest and Rev. Fr. Edwin Monis, Assistant Parish Priest.

In the introduction, a little girl invited the gathering to thank and Praise God during the Eucharistic celebration for making it possible to receive Jesus for the first time in their lives through the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. On this occasion, all of us need to be grateful to our parents for giving us the gift of love and faith and for bringing us up as children of God. We are thankful to our Catechism teachers for teaching us about Jesus and for preparing us thoroughly to receive Jesus for the first time in our lives.

Fr. Joseph Martis in his homily invited the children to make Jesus the centre of their lives. He made them understand that by obeying their parents, doing their day today studies and helping others, they can be children of God and by their good behavior; everyone who meets them should realize that he or she is a child of God.

He narrated the incident when The Rev. Pedro Arrupe, Head of the Jesuit Order from 1965 to 1983 and a Doctor who had visited Mangalore during the centenary celebrations of St. Aloysius College was in Hiroshima in Japan when the atom bomb had fallen.

This was the story of Nakamura San who was a Catholic girl and was in Hiroshima the day the bomb was dropped. Fr. Pedro found her inside a shack, lying on the ground with her hands and feet horribly swollen. All one could see was skin and bone showing through her burnt flesh. She remained in this condition for fifteen days. Nakamura San opened her eyes, recognised Fr. Pedro and told him something he would never forget: The question she asked was: “Fr. Arrupe, could you give communion to me?”

Her final wish before she succumbed to death caused by the atomic bomb was to receive Communion. The greatness of Christianity prevailed, even in the midst of the disasters and tragedies caused by the nuclear nightmare. Despite her disfigured body, courtesy of the effects of the atomic explosion, Japanese student Nakamura San used her last, dwindling strengths to receive Jesus before she died. In the same way, Fr. Joseph invited the children and the gathering to be a witness to Jesus in our lives.

After the Eucharist, all the children who received First Holy Communion sang a hymn of thanksgiving. The children were presented with a scapular and a certificate as a remembrance of their First Holy Communion Day.