to be a bit disillusioned with First Holy Communion

[mommy2ash]

I live in Ireland and was raised a Catholic, not because of any strong belief from my parents, previous generations yes but my own parents not so much but because here it is just the done thing. the vast majority of schools are Catholic and it is just the unspoken done thing that children are christened and go on to make the their communion and confirmation.

fast forward a few years after i have my own little girl and i start working on issues i have been having and discovered a different way of thinking through shamanism and now feel i am more of a spiritualist than a religious person. all the messages of kindness and personal responsibility i have enjoyed in my religion without any of the church hypocrisy and scandal and also without the many things i have grown to disagree with.

now my dd is in the class in school the children make their communion. its a huge thing here, great expense and takes up the entire school year. i have already decided against the huge expense and am quite pleased i managed to grab some great bargains for her dress and accessories it shouldn't cost me more than 150 all in. everyone else i have talk to have started at 350 for the dress alone without everything else needed.

so tonight i am helping her practice her prayers and it feels so wrong. she has an a4 page to learn and all of them are asking God for forgiveness for her sins and talking about the times she didn't love others or live as Jesus asked her to. she is eight she is innocent good and pure and i am angry with myself for allowing this to be honest. im sure she isn't reading as much into the words as i do but it feels like overkill.

yes i know i could just go to the school and tell her teacher i don't want her to take part but at this stage it would set her apart from everyone else in her class for my own selfish reasons.

i am being unreasonable for following this through when i don't agree with it aren't i?

I haven't read full thread but gosh this is bringing back memories. The day of my first confession (and the lead up) was utterly terrifying. I couldn't get my head around the fact that I must have sinned. I couldn't think of anything I had done wrong. I made up my confession ffs! I think I told him that I'd stolen sweets from my brother. Not to mention the fear the nums put into us while we were waiting our turn to go up ( I was chatting in church- big mistake - that should have been my confession!) i have since spoken to other Catholics who said they had the same fears around their first confession and made up their sins!

i do appreciate the answers its good to debate things. the reason so much money is spent is people either are well off enough to afford it or spend years saving. i had quite a bit put away but wasn't really willing to spend it for the sake of one day so left it all in my dd's savings account. im surprised you haven't heard of people spending so much it seems very normal around here. it was that way even when i was a child. i never had new clothes and quite often went without food but i had the biggest white blingy communion dress when my day came around. what a waste.

Perhaps the people I know are either more sensible or just poorer! Look, I'm really not trying to get at you, I hope you can appreciate this is an emotive issue and a difficult one to deal with from my pov. My apologies if I have been overly personal.

no you haven't at all im talking myself around in circles about it. i do appreciate you feelings on it its an issue that can be difficult for non-believers and believers alike and i feel like im in no mans land not really knowing what i am. i guess i felt ok enough about it all till my little girl stood there parroting of prayers asking for forgiveness for all her sins and for those of people before her it seemed mad.

i think a lot of people aren't very sensible about it. i know plenty who really don't have the money but the pressure to keep up with everyone gets to them, its sad really.

Mommy2ash, I'm a catachist at my local church.

Sacrament of reconciliation is often a huge stumbling block for people, and I can see the look of panic and discomfort in parents' eyes when we start teaching it. We have a parents' evening to go through these issues with them.

The base of it is usually 'but she's a child? Is she even capable of sin?'

All of the teachers in our parish are right there with the parents on that one. They're 7. How bad can they possibly be?

BUT, a big part of the reason for this is based on the way that we were taught it 30 or so years ago. At the time, it was very much 'remember a list of sins you've done, then go and trot them out to the priest, then say a prayer, then it's done.' The emphasis was on the things that you'd done wrong. Lots of the imagery was about dirty, horrible sin being stuck to you.

It's not a good idea for children.

The way we teach it in my church, these days, is that the focus has changed. We don't tend to call it Confession, but Reconciliation. That's what the emphasis is. We ask them to imagine they've fallen out with a friend, but then they go and talk to their friend, work out what's gone wrong and make up. Reconciliation is simply a way of reaffirming and reconnecting in their relationship with God.

If your daughter is worried about the sacrament, but you're sure you both want to go ahead with it, it might be worth discussing it with her in these terms. Would she like to reach out a hand of friendship to God, who will be reaching out a hand to her too - the sacrament of reconciliation is a mechanism that we have to do that.

Actually as far as I remember it was pretty much billed as "reconciliation" in my parish 35-odd years ago (we had a very trendy young Vatican 2-tastic parish priest at the time) - emphasis was on when "I didn't show love" rather than sin.

Can someone explain to me why some parents send their children to a Catholic school if that is not the religion they practise and they don't want their child to feel excluded from some of the lessons? What a shame for the DCs who feel left out. Is it purely because sometimes that's the better school in the area? I am genuinely interested.
My Ds' go to a Catholic school and we are not Catholic. The reason being it is one of 3 local schools to us and was the school that felt 'right' when I was looking at schools for ds1. Children from his class did the first communions last year, all of it is done on Saturdays at the church. The only part that was done at school was a mass that all those who had taken their first communion got to wear their dress/suit for. Ds1 was amongst a lot of children who didn't do it and was not bothered by it at all. We attended a first communion for a couple if friends and then one for all of the children.

Though as myself and PP said, in Ireland (where the OP also lives) it's a different situation - for a huge number of parents there is literally no option except Catholic school. Which is also why grocklebox and I are a bit pissed off at parents (not just you, OP!) who perpetuate the situation by participating in the sacraments even when they're not believers.

exactly, because it allows those in charge to say "everyone else wants it this way, you are unreasonable" when in reality most of them are not really catholic, never go to church, and do communion for the party afterwards and not the ceremony.
It allows the government and the church to actively discriminate against us and our children.

It also perpetuates such terrible things as this: www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/gay-teacher-pixelated-face-for-wedding-contest-to-protect-career-1.2099984

Did you know its perfectly legal to sack a teacher in a school just for being a lesbian? In 2015. This is the system that is being supported.

That's just messed up! What a shame you don't have the choice. Where we are, in West Scotland, parents have more options obviously. Although it sounds like we do a lot more RE actually within the school than some other areas. Thank you for clearing that up.