I was out for a few drinks and got chatting to a psychologist. She began telling me about her daughter’s upcoming First Communion. She talked about how difficult it was to get a bouncy castle, the weeks spent doing up the house and garden and the cost of the catering. She said jokingly that all the planning, the stress and the money was worse than her wedding. “The worst part,” she said, “is that I don’t even believe in any of it.”
I didn’t say anything. After all, we were in a pub and I didn’t know her very well. She was talking to me as if all of this were the most normal thing in the world. I’m sure she assumed I had gone through the same rituals when my child was in second class. I hear a lot of these conversations and what strikes me isn’t the lack of belief. It’s that it doesn’t seem to matter.
I’m not a psychologist, but I am a teacher. I’m also the parent of a child who didn’t make his Communion. Thousands of parents are in the same situation and this time of the year can feel isolating. We seem to have built a culture around an important religious sacrament where many taking part are unsure what they believe. I’ll admit I find that unsettling.
In most Irish primary schools preparation for First Communion is woven into the fabric of school life. I know this because I taught second class. Once January came along, the curriculum became completely integrated into sacramental preparation. Music classes were centred around the songs being sung in the church. Art classes were making decorations for the aisles. If there were a way to integrate mathematics into faith formation then that’s what I would have done. Months were spent in the classroom making sure the children were ready for the big day.
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In my own Educate Together school any sacramental preparation is done outside school time.
For most children, though, it is simply what happens in second class. Families go along to get along even if they don’t believe in it. In theory participation is optional, but in practice opting out is rarely experienced as a purely private decision; it means stepping outside the shared experience of your peers and often the expected norms of Irish society.
My psychologist friend might have had a term for it. That tension between what we believe and what we do doesn’t always lead us to change course. Sometimes it leads us to double down.
This might explain how the scale of First Communion celebrations appears to be increasing over the years. As the religious significance of the event becomes less important, what was once a modest gathering at home has evolved into something closer to a wedding party.
Venues, photo booths, beauty salons, cupcakes, balloon arches and chocolate fountains are as much a part of the Communion day as rosary beads and taking the host for the first time once were. There is now a well-developed industry built around the day, offering packages that make it easier to turn it into something bigger.
All the while the original question – “What is this actually for?” – gets set aside. It is easier, perhaps, to make the day bigger than to ask what it means.
My child didn’t make his Communion because it wasn’t his to make – we have no religion. However, I’m always struck by how difficult it can be to talk about any of this. If one asks about the religious aspect of Communion, then it is often brushed off as naive or beside the point.
If you step outside the ritual entirely, like our family did, then the reaction can be stronger again. I’m often surprised by how defensive people can become. At times it can go further. I’ve been told that Ireland is a Catholic country and that if I don’t like it, then I might be better elsewhere.
An Irish National Teachers’ Organisation survey last year revealed only 4 per cent of teachers believed that preparing children for sacraments should form part of their role. Despite this, in most schools it is central to what is expected of teachers by the school’s patron body and the parents.
It raises a number of questions, but one stands out to me: if belief is for many unimportant, but participation is structured and sustained through schools, then what are we asking children to take part in and what are we asking teachers to do?
It strikes me we have a situation where parents who don’t believe send their children to teachers who don’t believe to prepare them for a sacrament many of them don’t believe in.
I don’t dismiss the importance of marking milestones in a child’s life despite not taking part in this particular one myself. Families should celebrate in whatever way feels meaningful to them. However, when schools play such a central role in sustaining a ritual and more families feel isolated as a result, then it is worth asking whether it is sustainable.
When children are sidelined in their own classrooms because they do not participate in the sacraments and when teachers are expected to teach lessons against their own personal conscience, then I have to wonder if we can ignore the contradictions.
I didn’t ask that question in the pub that night. But it’s one we need to start asking somewhere.
Simon Lewis is principal of Carlow Educate Together primary school and is writing in a personal capacity
