Homily for First Holy Communions
May 4, 2024
The Presence of the Holy God
Today
you will be receiving Jesus Christ today in Holy Communion. And you are truly
blessed to be receiving Him so young, because for most of our Church’s history,
children didn’t receive Jesus until they were 11 or 12 years old. It was about
a hundred years ago that Pope St. Pius X moved the age to seven, and he did so
because of an amazing young girl named Nellie.
Nellie
Organ was born in Ireland in the early 1900s. Sadly, her mother died when she
was only two, and her father was so overwhelmed trying to raise four children
that he sent them off to an orphanage school run by some nuns, who are women
dedicated to the Lord.
The nuns
would bring her to the church and teach her about the Lord, whom Nellie called “The
Holy God!” She seemed to have amazing knowledge of the Catholic Faith from a
very young age – she would keep pointing at the tabernacle and calling out, “It’s
the prison of The Holy God!” She knew that the Eucharist was truly Jesus. When
the nuns would come back from receiving Communion, she would ask the nuns to
kiss her, so that she could share in their Holy Communions. So desperately did
she want to have Jesus’ Eucharistic presence with her!
But it
was impossible. She was only four years old, far too young to receive Jesus. As
much as the nuns told her she couldn’t receive Him, she kept begging and
begging. Finally, a priest came to visit her, and she asked him for Communion.
He asked her, “Do you understand what the Eucharist is?” She replied, “Yes, it
is Jesus, the Holy God!” The priest was amazed at her understanding and her
faith, so he granted her request and she received Communion. What joy that
brought her! It also sustained her, because shortly after, she got very sick,
and after a long illness, died at the young age of four years old.
But her love
for the Eucharist began to make her famous after her death – a book was written
about her, and when the Pope read that book, he decided to make Holy Communion
available to children as young as seven years old. So it is young Nellie Organ
that you have to thank, for the privilege of receiving Him today!
And to
receive Him, you must believe that He is present here. To your sight and taste,
it will appear as bread. But when Jesus said, “This is My Body,” and we know
that Jesus cannot lie, we take Him at His word.
Once
when I was young, I was playing at my best friend’s house, who lived across the
street from me. She left the room for a minute, and I spied a cookie sitting on
a plate on her dresser. I figured she wouldn’t miss it, so I grabbed it and took
a huge bite…only to find out that it wasn’t a cookie, but a bar of soap shaped
like a cookie! I wonder what she thought when she found a bite taken out of her
soap!
But
sometimes our senses don’t tell us the whole truth. It certainly looked like a
cookie, but it was actually soap. Sometimes we see flowers and wonder: are they
real? Or are they fake flowers made of silk? Sometimes we touch them and smell
them, and we still can’t tell! In the same way, the Eucharist looks like bread –
but it is truly something different, the Body and Blood of the Lord. We can’t
rely on our senses, but on what Jesus Christ has told us – “This IS My Body…this
IS My Blood.”
Little
Nellie Organ had a burning desire to be close to Jesus, and she knew that He
was truly here in the Eucharist, the physical presence of the Holy God. I pray
that you, too, have a burning desire to be close to Jesus – and that you will
always find Him here, truly present in Holy Communion.
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