Tonight was my last class for the year. I really loved this whole year of teaching. I had good days and bad days as you all know but as a whole, I feel very blessed and very fortunate for having this experience. I learned and I know they learned. I know in the years to come, I can only grow as a religious ed teacher and hopefully a regular ed teacher. I hope that I shared with the students my love of God, the Church, and just how wonderful it is to be able to receive the Eucharist. I hope I helped them grow in their faith and understand the Church just a little bit more than they did. There is a lot to learn and at that age, it's just the start. I hope their parents continue to keep them in catechism classes and that they always keep wanting to learn.
They are ready. They understand. I'm so proud of them.
I also developed a new-found admiration and respect for the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. The children practiced receiving the Body and Blood for the first time. Of course we used unconsecrated hosts and wine and they processed through the line, just as they will on Saturday and Sunday. I stood in the front giving them the host. They were all so good. We'll go over it again on Thursday to make sure they do it right. It truly is an amazing thing to be able to share this experience with them, and I imagine for the ministers who do this ministry it is a humbling experience. What's funny, was I tasted one of the hosts tonight and I commented that the consecrated hosts tasted better. ;-) They didn't like the taste of the wine. At their age, when I received for the first time, I didn't like it either. However, I do think that the sacramental wine my parish uses is actually pretty good. I've tasted much worse, but you know when I go up to receive Communion, I don't really think about how either species actually tastes.
I guess it's all in the way we think about things.
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