First Mass. Saturday 19 April 2025.
St Thomas’s, Canterbury.
My first communion, about seven minutes after becoming a catholic. I remember smiling, but the rest was a bit of a blur.
There were crowds as we all shifted ourselves to the front of the line to receive the Eucharist. I was too busy concentrating on how to extend my hands correctly to notice people waiting for me to go first. My suit and tie marked me out as one of those very recently received into the church, and people wanted to be kind. Mass isn’t about us, I’m clear on that, but on these occasions, you can’t help but stand out.
How was it that remembering to do simple things became such a challenge? Bow, say Amen, make sure you consume the host in front of the priest, cross yourself. It took all the mental coordination I had. I managed it, then remembered to get out of the way of the crowd of people following behind.
I took the long way back to my seat, alongside the choir. Then, squeezing past Pauline, 100 years old this year, seated in her wheelchair, I made it to my pew in the second row.
I knelt to pray. To thank God for the countless blessings I’d received. Then one of those blessings tapped me on the shoulder. Louise, our RCIA leader, the first Catholic I’d met. She was the person who’d let me go first. She was now out of order to get back to her seat and needed to squeeze past. We both smiled. I resisted the urge to hug. Then knelt, and prayed, and prayed.
There was cake and wine in the hall, where my sponsor Simon gave me a gift (the autobiography of Pope Francis). He joked about the gift receipt he’d enclosed, but I knew I would immediately throw that away.
I managed an awkward conversation with Father G. Two nights earlier he’d washed my feet, which I’d found incredibly moving. It might have made me overly reverent and I soon ran out of things to say. Not his first time. I wanted to hug him as well.
I got home just before midnight. My son was making himself something to eat after getting home from work and had a gift for me. For “making it through Lent”, he said. It was a wooden rosary. The most beautiful and thoughtful gift, and a complete surprise. I thought to myself I would be buried with this rosary. No hesitation this time, I hugged him.
Getting to sleep was the second mental challenge of the night. Impossible with so much going through my mind. What a day.