First communion in Haifa

On Saturday, June 21, 2014, we prayed for the first time in our renovated chapel. On this day, when we celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Blessed Sacrament), four Filipino children, little members of our kehilla, received the bread of life for the first time. They prepared for the sacrament by means of lessons and participation in the Holy Mass in our kehilla. This year, all four children joined us in the experience of living the last days of Jesus in the world: Palm Sunday (his entrance into Jerusalem), Holy Thursday (his Last Supper), Good Friday (his passion and death) and the Easter vigil (his Resurrection).

The ceremony of the first communion was very successful. The mothers, together with Sister Mary-Michael, decorated the chapel and prepared the food for after mass. The children, dressed in white shirts and dresses, were neatly ready. Concentrated and desiring to receive Jesus into their lives. The mass was attended by many guests and the families of the children. At the moment that the four children received first communion, a friend of the four, a six year old girl, approached Father Roman, she too wanting to receive Jesus. Despite the fact that we tried to explain that she too would receive him one day, her tears did not stop flowing. When they went home, we agreed with her parents that next year she too would join the religion classes and in two or three years she would receive the bread of life in a first communion ceremony.