What 2nd graders teach me

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of helping out with a tour group from the nearby Catholic grade school in Maryville, MO.  These 2nd graders just made their first communion on Sunday.  

I remember making my first communion many years ago and thinking I was a 'big person' now that I could go to communion and not have to stay back in the pew while everyone deserted me and went up to do something I couldn't really make out.  

Do these kids look happy or what?   This picture was taken outside of a Marian Grotto we have on our property.  Now of course a field trip day always makes kids happy.  

The kids received a tour of our main chapel and relic chapel and then I gave them a little speech on where their communion breads come from.  The thing I love about 2nd graders is that they are pretty attentive (not sure what the attention span for an average 8 yr old is), do look at you, listen to what you are saying and aren't afraid to ask questions...perhaps with their teacher and parent chaperones hovering over them they do better.  :)  My experience with teen agers is often that they don't look at you and are pretending that they aren't interested in what you have to say lest their peers pick up on that and tease them.  However, once being a teenager myself, I can't hardly blame them!

I told them we use 100 pounds of flour and 16 gallons of water in each mix of batter.   In one week of production we use 5200 - 6500 pounds of flour and 832-1040 gallons of water.  We also produce approximately 2 million breads per week.   If you were to stack up all the breads we make in one week it would stretch 1.97 miles!   It is really a sacred work for our community to produce the bread that will be changed into the body of Christ.

The beauty of these kids is that the whole Eucharist experience is new for them.  They are excited to receive Jesus and proud to be one of the older crowd now.  They haven't been jaded by scandal in the church and they aren't arguing about church doctrine.  They are just happy to be receiving Jesus.  (Once you get through the scariness of your first confession, everything is pretty much downhill when you are 8 yrs old.)  These kids are the ones just doing what Jesus commanded 2000 years ago, "Do this in remembrance of me."   

 So what these kids teach me is to see the beauty of our Eucharist with fresh eyes.   As a daily Mass goer, I know that the Eucharist can lose it's luster when you receive every day.   I can take it for granted and be very complacent.  

As a Conception Abbey Monk used to say in his homilies to us - "those things you do daily, you do dully, unless you do them deeply."