Easter is a Homecoming

Father Joseph Cisetti is pastor at St. Therese Parishin northland Kansas City.

When we resumed Sunday Masses after the COVID shutdown, I remember some people coming forward to receive Communion with tears in their eyes. They were coming home to Communion.

For the last several months, a message to the people of our diocese has been: Come Home to Communion. It has been a joy to see people return to live worship. Watching Mass on television may be edifying and helpful when there is no alternative, but as a song from many years ago opined, “Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.” The real thing, of course, is the real presence of Jesus in Eucharist.

In the spring, there is joy of seeing people Come Home to Communion for the first time as they receive the gift Jesus makes of himself at their first Communion. At the Easter Vigil, the newly baptized, and often the newly received, share in the Eucharist with us for the first time. After Easter, many children, mostly those in second grade, also Come Home to Communion for the first time.

As we watch these people, young and old, come home to Communion, may it remind us all of the great gift we receive in the Eucharist, and may it lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of that gift.