Evan's First Communion

You'll notice that there is not picture of Evan in a suit, and you weren't invited to a celebration party for Evan's First Communion. In the Episcopal Church, any baptized person can receive communion regardless of age and denomination. Last week Evan received communion for the first time with a little excitement, of course.

For the first few weeks going to the new church, Evan walked up for communion to receive a blessing. Then, one week when he was at church with Greg alone, he put his hands out to receive communion (the bread) and went to the wine and threw the communion wafer into the wine. The next week the priest told me not to worry about this infraction (my word not his), and he said that Evan seemed very interested in receiving communion and encouraged me to allow him to do so if I was comfortable with it. (The church does hold a first communion ceremony for first graders for the former Catholics in the church.)

So I decided to give him some religious instruction of my own before his "first communion." We read about the Last Supper in his children's bible and reviewed the procedure. After very piously walking up to the priest with his hands folded in prayer, he proceeded to try to help himself to the communion wafers. Eventually, he let the priest put the wafer in his hand, ate the bread, and returned to the pew to pray very seriously for several minutes. He assures me that he know to wait to be served.

This morning he gave me some insight into his action of throwing the wafer into the wine. He told me that he thought that is what people were doing when they dipped their wafer into the wine glass. He thought they were making a wish using a communion wafer instead of a coin. I guess I better keep sending him to church school.