What happens at the First Communion?

Answer 1

Catholic AnswerThe effects of first Holy Communion objectively are those first Holy Communion (listed below), the increase of actual grace, producing a likeness to Christ, a special union of the soul with Christ, and increases the virtue of charity, and those graces necessary to live for Christ habitually, to love the unlovable, to live chastely, and to remove the personal guilt of forgiven sin, and to forgive venial sin. Objectively, this only happens to the extent that the person actually intends them, and is trying to be in union with God, which makes preparation for every Holy Communion, and the Thanksgiving afterward so necessary. Thus the effects of first Holy Communion are enough to catapult a child into sainthood instantly, but this is rarely the case as the child is not prepared adequately, and is not making the acts of will and preparation necessary to actualize these graces.

from Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J. Doubleday & Co., Inc. Garden City, NY 1980

First Communion. The precept of the Church that requires child to receive Holy Communion, along with the sacrament of penance, on reaching the age of reason. First issued by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the practice was all but discontinued for centuries, due to the inroads of Jansenism. Pope St. Pius X restored the practice and restated the precept, while he also explains how necessarily related are the two sacraments of penance and the Eucharist. "The age of discretion," he said, "both for confession and for Holy Communion is the time when a child begins to reason." This means that "a full and perfect knowledge of Christian doctrine is not necessary either for first confession or first Communion." Moreover, "the obligation of the precept of confession and Communion which binds the child particularly affects those who have charge of him, namely, parents, confessor, teachers, and the pastor" (Quam Singulari, August 8, 1910).

Holy Communion. The Eucharist is the sacrament that preserves the soul's union with God and fosters that union by making a person more holy especially in the practice of the supernatural virtue of charity. As a sacrament of the living, to obtain the graces intended, a person must be in that state of God's friendship when receiving, otherwise the reception becomes a sacrilege (I Corinthians 11:27-29).

The Union of the communicant with Christ in the Eucharist is effective in the moral order. Though physically present in the communicant, Christ is not physically united with him. Only the consecrated species, since they alone can come in contact with material things, are physically united with the communicant.

Communion aims specifically at producing a likeness to Christ in the communicants. Their acts of mind and will, as a result of Communion, are to become more conformable to the acts of Christ's mind and will. Their body, too, is to become more like Christ's sacred body.

This is the primary purpose of the sacrament, a special union of the soul with Christ. What is special about this union is that the Eucharist is extraordinarily powerful in conferring actual graces that prompt a person to make acts of love for God and one's neighbor. Moreover, these graces inspire one to live for Christ habitually, even under great difficulties, as shown by the readiness to love the unlovable, and to promote loving community in spite of great natural diversity.

The secondary purpose of Communion is to assimilate the body of the communicant to the body of Christ in two ways: it curbs or mitigates all disordered passions, especially those against chastity, and it confers a new title to the final resurrection of the body in heavenly glory.

A final effect of Communion is to remove the personal guilt of venial sins, and the temporal punishment due to forgiven sins, whether venial or mortal.

Answer 2

what is the process for the child and parents at a first communion? If parents are divorced and have new partners how can this be dealt with?