I’m not going to go into the debacle of what was originally supposed to be Miss H’s first communion back in April. Let’s just say the world should be really happy that J and I are both super easy going individuals, haha.
So Miss H ended up receiving her first communion this past Sunday. And it was beautiful and emotional (for me), and a long time coming.
I was baptized Catholic as an infant, but I wasn’t raised Catholic. I wasn’t really raised as anything, so it’s intriguing in some ways that it’s where I teetered back to.
I had the privilege of attending a Catholic high school, by choice, for two years before moving back to Indiana, although I did not remotely identify or practice as Catholic then. It wasn’t until I began my sophomore year of college, a little overwhelmed from the cards I’d been dealt that summer, that I really started to seek a quiet refuge in the idea of religion.
There are a lot of things I probably don’t agree with in the Catholic Church as a whole. I also genuinely do not care if my children grow to decide they want to be Buddhist or Atheist or whatever. It’s their journey, not mine. I’m happy to share with them how I came to this place, but it’s not my choice to decide what or how they believe. That’s up to them.
I was confirmed in the Catholic Church while I was living in England the year before J and I wed, and I knew if I was going to do marriage I wanted it to be a through the Church, for better or for worse. J was born and raised Catholic, and though he was not, and is not, very much a practicing Catholic, he has always whole heartedly supported my decisions and precarious faith.
We gave H and B the choice to participate in religious education classes and whether or not they wanted to take the steps toward their first communion (B still has another year of classes before he is there) and both said yes. And they’ve both definitely enjoyed their classes more than actual mass, haha. Which I don’t blame them. The few Christmas masses I sat through as a kid I wasn’t particularly fond of. It wasn’t until I was an adult.
Anyway, H’s first communion came. The babies were wild so J ended up outside with them and missed the whole thing, which I know made her a little sad, and J, too. But that’s just life sometimes.
I cried. Because that’s what I do. And by cried I got teary-eyed because I very rarely truly cry. But she was beautiful and it was a beautiful moment and I’m so glad that for now, it’s the path she is choosing is right for her heart.
And her heart is so big and so full of love and goodness, I sometimes can’t believe she came from J and I. She is definitely proof that it is so much nature, and only a sliver of nurture, as much as we sometimes want to believe otherwise.
And I am so, so thankful, that God felt like we deserved Miss H in our lives, and that we are remotely good enough to be a part of her life’s journey, because she is truly one of the best people I know.