Last week Wednesday, in the Senior Primary, we held our Admission to Holy Communion service.

My favourite description of the sacrament of Holy Communion is from the Lumko Institute’s centre for inculturation. In their vernacular translations, they call the Eucharist sejo a lapa, meaning a family meal. In their training material for preparing children for holy communion, they emphasise that it is vital for children to recognise that faith and life are not divorced from each other. The approach they recommend for preparing children, is centred on helping children to integrate their faith into their lives. Most importantly, children are to recognise that the Eucharist is itself a sacrament of reconciliation.

In the Eucharist, there is a twofold movement: the call to come, ‘draw near and receive’ and the summons to move out into a needy world, ‘go in peace to love and serve the Lord’. These are the hallmarks of the eucharistic community (An Anglican Prayer Book 1989:102).

REVD RAKGADI KHOBO
CHAPLAIN