Page 10 - First Eucharist

Confirmation
Confirmation completes Baptism. A bishop seals us with the gift of the Holy Spirit. God pours out the Holy Spirit on us. The Holy Spirit urges us to love people the way Jesus showed us. The Holy Spirit makes Christians one.
Eucharist
Jesus made himself an everlasting gift for us when he loved us unto Death on the Cross. God raised him up to new life. Before he died, Jesus asked his followers to gather and share a meal to remember him.
At every Eucharist we gather as Jesus asked. A priest leads us in a prayer of remembering and giving thanks. Eucharist means thanks.
We remember and give thanks
for Jesus’ gift of himself on the Cross.
We remember and give thanks that God raised Jesus up to new life.
We remember how Jesus blessed bread and wine on the night before he died. He made bread and wine signs of his love for us that he lived out on the Cross. Jesus comes to us in every Eucharist.
We receive the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.
with the children and show them how to hold their hands. This is an opportunity for children to see, touch, and taste the unconsecrated hosts or bread your parish community uses in the Eucharist.
b. Read aloud the text around the Eucharist photo.
5. Ask the children who they know has received Confirmation. Have them look closely at the photo.
a. Explain in Confirmation the bishop or a priest he designates prays for the Holy Spirit to come upon us and then marks our foreheads with a special oil in the shape of a cross as he says, “____, be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Have a saucer of vegetable oil and anoint the children’s foreheads with it to demonstrate the bishop’s action in Confirmation. Point out that this is just regular cooking oil and not the special oil used by priests and bishops in Baptism and Confirmation.
b. Write the words Christ and Christians on the chalkboard or newsprint. Explain that Christ means anointed. To say that Christ is anointed means that he has come with a special mission to save and redeem us.
c. Read aloud the text next to the Confirmation photo.
3. Ask what step a Catholic takes next in becoming a full member of the community of Jesus’ followers. What is the next celebration after Baptism? Accept either Eucharist (Holy Communion) or Confirmation.
steps 4 and 5 in the order your group mentions the next sacrament.
Confirmation and Eucharist
Note: Practice today varies according to diocesan policy on when children receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. Some receive it before First Eucharist in keeping with the order in which the early Church celebrated the three Sacraments of Initiation. Other children receive Eucharist as second graders and Confirmation in their teen years. Do
4. Write the word Eucharist on the chalkboard or newsprint. Make sure the children realize that First Eucharist or First Communion is the name for the first time they will share the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass.
a. Have the children look closely at the photo. Pantomime what the priest or Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion does in giving people the Body of Christ. Pantomime
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