For the Roman Catholic child, how
beautiful and yet how sad is the day of his first communion! How many joys and
anxieties by turn rise in his soul when for the first time he is about to eat
what he has been taught to believe to be his God! How many efforts has he to
make, in order to destroy the manifest teachings of his own rational faculties!
I confess with deep regret that I had almost destroyed my reason, in order to
prepare myself for my first communion. Yes, I was almost exhausted when the
day came that I had to eat what the priest has assured us was the true body,
the true blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. I was about to eat Him, not
in a symbolical or commemorative, but in a literal way. I was to eat His flesh,
His bones, His hands, His feet, His head, His whole body! I had to believe this
or be cast for ever into hell, while, all the time, my eyes, my hands, my mouth,
my tongue, my reason told me that what I was eating was only bread!
Has there ever been, or will there ever be, a priest or a layman to believe
what the Church of Rome teaches on this dreadful mystery of the Real Presence?
Shall I say that I believed in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the communion?
I believed in it as all those who are good Roman Catholics believe. I believed
as a perfect idiot or a corpse believes. Whatever is essential to a reasonable
act of faith had been destroyed in me on that point, as it is destroyed in every
priest and layman in the Church of Rome. My reason as well as my external senses
had been, as much as possible, sacrificed at the feet of that terrible modern
god, the Pope! I had been guilty of the incredibility foolish act, of which
all good Roman Catholics are guilty I had said to my intellectual faculties,
and to all my senses, "Hush, you are liars! I had believed to this day
that you had been given to me by God in order to enable me to walk in the dark
paths of life, but, behold! the holy Pope teaches me that you are only instruments
of the devil to deceive me!"
What is a man who resigns his intellectual liberty, and who cares not to believe
in the testimony of his senses? Is he not acting the part of one who has no
gift or power of intelligence? A good Roman Catholic must reach that point!
That was my own condition on the day of my first communion.
When Jesus said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had
sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin....If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now have they
both seen and hated both Me and My Father" (John xv.22,24). He showed that
the sin of the Jews consisted in not having believed in what their eyes had
seen and their ears had heard. But behold, the Pope says to Roman Catholics
that they must not believe in what their hands undoubtedly handle and their
eyes most clearly see! The Pope sets aside the testimony most approved by Jesus.
The very witnesses invoked by the Son of God are ignominiously turned out of
court by the Pope as false witnesses!
As the moment of taking the communion drew near, two feelings were at war in
my mind, each struggling for victory. I rejoiced in the thought that I would
soon have full possession of Jesus Christ, but at the same time I was troubled
and humbled by the absurdity which I had to believe before receiving that sacrament.
Though scarcely twelve years old, I had sufficiently accustomed myself to reflect
on the profound darkness which covered that dogma. I had been also greatly in
the habit of trusting my eyes, and I thought that I could easily distinguish
between a small piece of bread and a full-grown man!
Besides, I extremely abhorred the idea of eating human flesh and drinking human
blood, even when they assured me that they were the flesh and blood of Jesus
Christ Himself. But what troubled me most was the idea of that God, who was
represented to me as being so great, so glorious, so holy, being eaten by me
like a piece of common bread! Terrible then was the struggle in my young heart,
were joy and dread, trust and fear, faith and unbelief by turns had the upper
hand.
While that secret struggle, known only to God and to myself, was going on, I
had often to wipe off the cold perspiration which came on my brow. With all
the strength of my soul I prayed to God and the Holy Virgin to be merciful unto
me, to help, and give me sufficient strength and light to pass over these hours
of anguish.
The Church of Rome is evidently the most skillful human machine the world has
ever seen. Those who guide her in the dark paths which she follows are often
men of deep thought. They understand how difficult it would be to get calm,
honest and thinking minds to receive that monstrous dogma of the real corporal
presence of Jesus Christ in the communion. They well foresaw the struggle which
would take place even in the minds of children at the supreme moment when they
would have to sacrifice their reason on the altar of Rome. In order to prevent
those struggles, always so dangerous to the Church, nothing has been neglected
to distract the mind and draw the attention to other subjects than that of the
communion itself.
First, at the request of the parish priest, helped by the vanity of the parents
themselves, the children are dressed as elegantly as possible. They young communicant
is clothed in every way best calculated to flatter his own vanity also. The
church building is pompously decorated. The charms of choice vocal and instrumental
music form a part of the fete. The most odorous incense burns around the altar
and ascends in a sweetsmelling cloud towards heaven. The whole parish is invited,
and people come from every direction to enjoy a most beautiful spectacle. Priests
from the neighbouring churches are called, in order to add to the solemnity
of the day. The officiating priest is dressed in the most costly attire. This
is the day on which silver and gold altar cloths are displayed before the eyes
of the wondering spectators. Often a lighted wax taper is placed in the hand
of each young communicant, which itself would be sufficient to draw his whole
attention; for a single false motion would be sufficient to set fire to the
clothes of his neighbour, or his own, a misfortune which has happened more than
once in my presence.
Now, in the midst of that new and wonderful spectacle of singing Latin Psalms,
not a word of which he understands; in view of gold and silver ornaments, which
glitter everywhere before his dazzled eyes; busy with the holding of the lighted
taper, which keeps him constantly in fear of being burned alive can the young
communicant think for a moment of what he is about to do?
Poor child! his mind, ears, eyes, nostrils are so much taken up with those new,
striking and wonderful things that, while his imagination is wandering from
one object to another, the moment of communion arrives, without leaving him
time to think of what he is about to do! He opens his mouth, and the priest
puts upon his tongue a flat thin cake of unleavened bread, which either firmly
sticks to his palate or otherwise melts in his mouth, soon to go down into his
stomach just like the food he takes three times a day!
The first feeling of the child, then, is that of surprise at the thought that
the Creator of heaven and earth, the upholder of the universe, the Saviour of
the world, could so easily pass down his throat!
Now, follow those children to their homes after that great and monstrous comedy.
See their gait! Listen to their conversation and their bursts of laughter! Study
their manners, their coming in, their going out, their glances of satisfaction
on their fine clothes, and the vanity which they manifest in return for the
congratulations they receive on their fine dresses. Notice the lightness of
their actions and conversation immediately after their communion, and tell me
if you find anything indicating that they believed in the terrible dogma they
have been taught.
No, they have not believed in it, neither will they ever do so with the firmness
of faith which is accomplished by intelligence. The poor child thinks he believes,
and he sincerely tries to do so. He believes in it as much as it is possible
to believe in a most monstrous and ridiculous story, opposed to the simplest
notions of truth and common sense. He believes as Roman Catholics believe. He
believes as an idiot believes!!
That first communion has made of him, for the rest of his life, a real machine
in the hands of the Pope. It is the first but most powerful link of that long
chain of slavery which the priest and the Church pass around his neck. The Pope
holds the end of that chain, and with it he will make his victim go right or
left at his pleasure, in the same way that we govern the lower animals. If those
children have made a good first communion they will be submissive to the Pope,
according to the energetic word of Loyola. They will be in the hands of the
traveler they will have no will, no thought of their own!
And if God does not work a miracle to bring them out from that bondage which
is a thousand times worse than the Egyptian, they will remain in that state
during the rest of their lives.
My soul has known the weight of those chains. It has felt the ignominy of that
slavery! But the great Conqueror of souls has cast down a merciful eye upon
me. He has broken my chains, and with His holy Word He has made me free.
May His name be for ever blessed.