Texts: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10,22-22:5; John 14:23-29
Good morning kids! Do you know what happened on July 20, 1969? Here’s a clue: this event did not take place on the planet earth.
On July 20, 1969, the lunar module of the Apollo 11 mission landed on the surface of the moon and for the first time, a human being walked on the surface of the moon. Do you know his name – the name of the first to do this? Neil Armstrong. Did you also know that Neil Armstrong is a Christian?
And check this out – did you know that Neil Armstrong brought Holy Communion with him to the moon? Yes, as Armstrong got ready to leave the lunar module and to take his first step, “one giant leap for mankind”, he and Buzz Aldrin stopped to share Holy Communion together. The very first liquid ever poured by humans on the moon, and the first food ever eaten there was the wine and bread of Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
There is something so incredibly powerful about this gift of Jesus that it touches people at the deepest spot. That's because this gift of Holy Communion is all about love.
We just heard Jesus say that “those who love me will keep my word.” That means that if we love Jesus, if we are thankful for what he has done for us, then we will follow his instructions.
I bet you know already how that works. If you really like your teacher, if your teacher is good to you and fair and kind, then you will probably do what the teachers asks of you.
But if your teacher is mean, maybe calls you names, or embarrasses you in front of the whole class, then you won’t love that teacher, and I imagine that you’ll not want to do what that teachers asks. But if you like your teacher, you follow her instructions. That’s one of the main ways that you show her that you like her, right? By following what she says.
This is how it is with Jesus. If we love Jesus, then one of the main ways that we show this is by following his instructions, right?
Well, at the Last Supper, on the last night with his friends, Jesus gave us two main instructions. Do you know what they are? We heard about one just last week.
“Love one another,” he told us.
AND, he told us to share communion together to remember him. He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Today we have a few young people who are celebrating their First Holy Communion. They are making a promise that they will do this in remembrance of Jesus – that they will be faithful in receiving Holy Communion as a way of showing their love to Jesus. They will keep his word.
But today is also something else, right? (Something that many men fear and dread!) Yes, today is Mother’s Day. So today, we celebrate Communion as the way that Jesus feeds us spiritually as his family, AND we celebrate that person in our family who most often feeds us physically!
650 years ago, there was a great woman in England who loved Jesus greatly and who wrote about him in amazing ways. We call her Dame Julian of Norwich, and she wrote this:
“A mother can give her child to [drink from] her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and [he] does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the Blessed Sacrament, which is the precious food of true life.” A mother can feed her child right from her own body and give her infant child everything needed to grow and to be healthy. And so it is with Jesus. He feeds us with his own body so that we can grow and be healthy.
She also wrote this: “This fair lovely word ‘mother’ is so sweet and so kind in itself that it cannot truly be said of anyone or to anyone except of [Jesus] and to [Jesus], who is the true Mother of life and of all things. To the property of motherhood belong nature, love, wisdom and knowledge, and this is God.”
(60th Chapter, Long Text, Revelations).
Do you know that your mothers love you and would do anything to protect you, to make sure that you are healthy, to help you to grow up to be smart and strong?
This is how it is with the Lord Jesus also. Jesus loves you even more than your mothers ever could! And what has he given to us to make sure that we grow up healthy and smart and strong? He has given us the Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament.
It looks like simple bread and wine, and it may not taste very good to you. But that doesn’t matter. Because this bread and wine is the food of new and unending life, the nourishment of our true heavenly Mother. This food is what our souls need to live.
Thanks be to God for this great gift! Amen.
A Blessing for our First Holy Communion Candidates
May God the Father, who made you and gives you this special day to celebrate his love, smile upon you and shelter you in the shadow of his wings. AMEN.
May Jesus, who invites you to share his life in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, grace you with his lasting presence. AMEN.
May the Holy Spirit, who teaches you everything you need to know to truly live, fill your hearts with abiding joy. AMEN.
And for all of us gathered here today: may the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among us all of us and remain with us forever. AMEN.
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