Twin daughters' First Holy Communion questions

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My family will be received into the Catholic Church this Easter Vigil and while my husband, 12yo son, and I will receive communion at the Easter Vigil, our 8yo twin daughters will wait and receive FHC with the other 2nd graders at their FHC Mass.

First of all, what is the typical celebration for FHC? DH was rather surprised when I mentioned this event to him the other evening and since all of this is new to us, I’m not sure how to proceed in planning.

Secondly, who is normally invited? This is really what bothers me the most because we have no other Catholics in our family. We have 3-4 other Catholic families that we are close to but I’m not sure all of them can attend because they are out of town. I’m also a little leery of even inviting close family because they will not understand ANY of this.

Thirdly, since my son will be receiving FHC only a few weeks prior to the girls, would it be appropriate to include him as an honoree at any type event we may host or should I just limit it to our daughters?

I certainly don’t want to cheat my children out of such a memorable occasion and I want to start our Catholic lives “out right” ;)😃 I’m just so confused and uninformed about all of this! Please help!
 
It varies from Pastor to Pastor, but at our parish, the children receive their First Holy Communion at a regular Sunday Mass. The parishioners leave the front pews available for the families and their guests. The children receive, singly, by themselves first…and then when they have all received, the rest of the congregation gets in line as usual.
Some parishes have the children sit with their families. Your DRE can give you the rundown, and indeed should have had a meeting regarding this, dress codes, and expectations, retreats, etc. by now. Maybe it’s occurring in the near future. Invite anyone who you believe would be genuinely happy fro you and your daughters. Family, a dear neighbor friend, a parishioner that has been supportive of your conversion…anyone you like, Those who live too far away would appreciate a formal invitation too, they will send a card with their prayers and well-wishes.
Honor whomever you wish at your personal festivities!
Congratulations to the entire family! God bless you.
 
pianistclare said:
It varies from Pastor to Pastor, but at our parish, the children receive their First Holy Communion at a regular Sunday Mass. The parishioners leave the front pews available for the families and their guests. The children receive, singly, by themselves first…and then when they have all received, the rest of the congregation gets in line as usual.
Some parishes have the children sit with their families. Your DRE can give you the rundown, and indeed should have had a meeting regarding this, dress codes, and expectations, retreats, etc. by now. Maybe it’s occurring in the near future. Invite anyone who you believe would be genuinely happy fro you and your daughters. Family, a dear neighbor friend, a parishioner that has been supportive of your conversion…anyone you like, Those who live too far away would appreciate a formal invitation too, they will send a card with their prayers and well-wishes.
Honor whomever you wish at your personal festivities!
Congratulations to the entire family! God bless you.
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This is how it’s done at our parish too.

I will say it’s very common for girls to wear a white dress. Some people go very elaborate, others more simple.

And congratulations and welcome!
 
Some larger parishes have seating limits for this so check beforehand. If your externded family cannot attend the mass, you can invite them to the party afterwards if you have one…

For the party—some families just go to a resturant or host a small home party-some have a huge catered affair-there is not a right or wrong way for the events afterward.

I would include your 12 year old as well on the invitations.
 
First off - Yay!! What a great problem to have!

Second, you might want to tell your kids that there’s an old custom that on your First Communion day (and during all the time leading up to it, but especially on the day), it’s a good day to tell Jesus about any special prayer intentions you might have. St. Therese talked about this in her autobiography, Story of a Soul. No guarantees, but it’s “a day of favor from the Lord,” so it’s good to tell Him what you need while you’re so close to Him!
  1. One of the reasons Catholics dress their kids up for First Holy Communion is because the first reception of a Sacrament is similar to the first time we enter into other covenantal Sacraments, like marriage. Some people get more into this analogy than others. As long as you present your kids in a dignified way that says they’re taking it seriously and so are you, you will be doing fine. If you and the kids want to get gung ho about it, that’s fine too!
If your son has a nice suit or another dignified formal outfit, definitely have him wear it for First Holy Communion. (Sometimes boys are shortchanged on this nowadays, but it’s as important an occasion for boys as for girls.)

Your local stores and catalogs probably offer white First Communion dresses somewhere around this time. Any nice white dress or nice dress will look good, though. You will also see white headband-attached “bridal veils” designed for little girls. Most of these are quite inexpensive, and most little girls love them. (You will probably see some girls in the parish wearing them, and some not. And if you get them, make sure they fit your girls’ heads!) Some girls wear little mantillas or chapel veils, and in the old days a lot of girls had little white hats or little white bows. (Or huge white bows, in the case of Eastern European Catholics!) So there’s a lot of choice.

Don’t spend the earth on outfits, though, especially since you have three kids receiving! These things are signs of what’s going on, not the Sacrament. So just pick out something appropriate according to you and your kids.
  1. Most parents hold a party, but if it’s just you folks and close family, or just you and the kids, that’s fine. What’s more important is giving the kids time to absorb their reception of the Sacrament. They might need some quiet time as well as party time.
If you do get anybody to come to your party (and you may as well ask, if people don’t live too far out of town; a lot of people love to come to First Holy Communion parties), then I would say your boy should share in the honors of it. If you don’t have much party for the girls, then make sure that you do at least a little something for your son at some point before that. (Heck, make sure you have some kind of little party, at least, for yourselves! Coming into the Church at Easter Vigil, or being reconciled into her, is worth a party either way!)
  1. This is a good time to give your kids religious gifts, or have their godparents/sponsors give them. Most kids get a teeny little prayer book/missal for following the prayers at Mass and saying the Rosary, with some devotional pictures. (If you go to a Catholic bookstore and see a bunch of kid-sized books that are bound in white fake leather and another pile in black fake leather, those are for First Holy Communion. Black or brown is usually the boys’ books and white the girls’ books. No real difference in content, usually.) It’s also a good time to give kids crucifixes for their walls, rosaries, Bibles (or at least kids’ Bibles or books of Bible stories), books about the saints, little plaster statues of their patron saints, etc. (Even if money is tight, you can probably go online or to a Catholic bookstore and get a good price on holy card pictures of your kids’ patrons, or something else nice.)
You might want to coordinate with anybody who might be giving your kids gifts, just to make sure you’re not getting three of anything for any one kid. If they probably won’t be getting anything from outsiders, you don’t have to worry about this! And again, you don’t have to spend the earth or equip the kids with every possible Catholic thing, all at once. You are all growing up in the Church together, so you will be able to give them more stuff like that later!

(If you’re lucky, your archdiocese or parish may give out some kind of gift for the kids. I got a picture of Jesus for my wall, which I still have.)

A few parishes (it used to be a lot) have their First Communion kids from that year do special stuff, like march in their Corpus Christi procession in June wearing their First Communion outfits again.
  1. I can’t think of anything else at the moment. You will probably see slightly different things going on, depending on the ethnic groups and devotional traditions that your parish has in its families. Keep your eyes open, but don’t feel intimidated by anything that is going on, and don’t feel that you have to copy off everybody else exactly.
You are Catholic now, and whatever you do is your family’s Catholic tradition! Mwhahahah!
 
Congratulations and welcome to the Church!

As you deepen your involvement in the Church, especially through your kids events, you will find that different families will have many different traditions when it comes to celebrating these momentous occasions in their spiritual lives. Some will have so many family members excited to celebrate that they will host a huge bash at their house or even rent out party rooms at hotels to accommodate all the guests. Others will have maybe the godparents or just grandparents attend. You will find all this and everything in between.

We tend to just celebrate with grandparents. We do not have family near by and my parents are the ones who will typically make the trip for our sacramental celebrations. You may have your choice of masses to attend or have a designated mass for the celebration, and typically your celebration will follow directly after the mass. I’m not sure what your celebration will be after you are received into the Church, but you can save your party decorations and cake plates for your twins’ celebration. Usually a decorated cake with white frosting and a beautiful symbol of a cross or chalice can be found at these events. Some other things that may be served are hot crossed buns, but there is no “traditional” food that goes with the celebration beyond cake :D. If you invite family, serve what you would at a normal family gathering.

Small gifts are common. A new Rosary, a children’s Bible, a saint book or statue of Mary are common gifts. You may want to check with your parish to see if they will be enrolling the kids in the brown Scapular before buying any religious medals for your kids to wear. In our parish the girls seem to get their ears pierced for the occasion 🤷 I"m not sure what the symbolism is for that, but it’s the thing to do here…Some families will shower the kids with money, 40 relatives giving an average $10 dollars can add up! So be prepared for kids to compare how much money they received and prepare your kids to know that it is not about the money.

As for your 12 year old, let his celebration be on the night he first receives our Holy Lord. Let your girls celebrate their reception. It is a fabulous day for each of them. Let family give gifts to your son when the visit for your daughter, but I would not put off his celebration. Celebrate them separately on the day/evening they first receive. It is SPECIAL! And remember, it’s not how big your party that makes the event special but the occasion of receiving Our Lord. You will understand in an even deeper way when you get to celebrate your own first communion!

HTH
 
MomaMary8 - You are so much less wordy, and so much more informational and wise!

slh3016 - Forgot one thing - if you do spring for white First Communion dresses from the store, make sure your little girls aren’t allergic to any of the fabrics, and take them seriously if they say they’re itchy. I was kinda sensitive to some kinds of nylon, as a kid. It turned out that the dotted Swiss in my dress left little dotted hives all over me, so I spent part of my First Communion party taking a baking soda bath instead of hanging out with my grandparents and godmother.

But - that’s the kind of thing that happens! It didn’t ruin my day or take away my spiritual appreciation of it; it was just annoying. (And guaranteed that I remembered the day clearly, heh!)
 
slh3016 said:
First of all, what is the typical celebration for FHC? DH was rather surprised when I mentioned this event to him the other evening and since all of this is new to us, I’m not sure how to proceed in planning.
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I’m not sure there is a typical FHC celebration. When our nieces and nephews made their FHC, we just ate at a kid friendly restaurant (pizza hut) or went back to my SIL/BIL’s for sandwiches and cake. It was just family. Like a really small family birthday party. NOTHING FANCY. I’d say if there is cake involved, that’s about it. Invite whoever sponsored you, that would be nice. If the kids have sponsors, invite them.

Typically parents, sponsors, or family will give small gifts at FHC like a rosary, a crucifix, a bible, or some other Catholic religious good. Get each daughter and your son a rosary, a bible, or perhaps a statue of their patron saint. You can get these from your local religious goods store or on the internet.

Dress for girls at FHC is usually a white dress and veil. Talk to the DRE or your RCIA sponsor about that.
slh3016 said:
Secondly, who is normally invited?
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At my niece and nephews’ FHC parties it was just family. But both my SIL and BIL and their spouses are Catholic, so the aunts and uncles were Catholic and godparents. But, it was basically just grandma and grandpa, parents, aunts, and uncles. That’s it.
slh3016 said:
This is really what bothers me the most because we have no other Catholics in our family. We have 3-4 other Catholic families that we are close to but I’m not sure all of them can attend because they are out of town. I’m also a little leery of even inviting close family because they will not understand ANY of this.
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Use your judgment. But you can invite them to the party and say “we are celebrating a special milestone in our children’s faith lives… please come to pizza and cake at …” or something. If they aren’t supportive, then make it just you and the kids for a special lunch and cake. Did I mention cake?

Our bakery locally will make a nice cake that says First Holy Communion with a rosary on it (our baker has little plastic rosaries b/c there are lots of Catholics in our small town, but if you buy a little plastic rosary and take it to them, they’ll incorporate it into the cake decoration).
slh3016 said:
Thirdly, since my son will be receiving FHC only a few weeks prior to the girls, would it be appropriate to include him as an honoree at any type event we may host or should I just limit it to our daughters?
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Absolutely, include your son!
slh3016 said:
I certainly don’t want to cheat my children out of such a memorable occasion and I want to start our Catholic lives “out right” ;)😃 I’m just so confused and uninformed about all of this! Please help!
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Make your memories your own way. Don’t worry about what other people do. I’m sure there are people who do a small, cake and punch party to those who go over the top-- just like any other occasion.

We are in the cake and punch camp.
 
Thanks for all the advice! Very helpful!

I guess my real issue is the lack of Catholic family. I feel a little odd about hosting a party to honor an event when 99% of those invited would NOT understand the significance of it. For instance, my BIL tells his unbaptized kids to receive communion in their Protestant church and my MIL has been known to tell my kids (prior to their baptism) that it was fine to take some cracker and grape juice when the communion plate was passed at her church :eek:

I feel like I’d need to catechize them all about the entire process and the thought of that makes me want to :banghead: I could see them all trying to get in line to go up for Communion :o

Any advice on how to handle that?
 
slh3016 said:
Thanks for all the advice! Very helpful!

I guess my real issue is the lack of Catholic family. I feel a little odd about hosting a party to honor an event when 99% of those invited would NOT understand the significance of it. For instance, my BIL tells his unbaptized kids to receive communion in their Protestant church and my MIL has been known to tell my kids (prior to their baptism) that it was fine to take some cracker and grape juice when the communion plate was passed at her church :eek:

I feel like I’d need to catechize them all about the entire process and the thought of that makes me want to :banghead: I could see them all trying to get in line to go up for Communion :o

Any advice on how to handle that?
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If you don’t think they’d understand or comply with the Catholic request to refrain from communion, just invite them to the party afterwards, not the mass.

Or, just go out as an immediate family-- you and your spouse and the kids.
 
Lots of good advice here as usual, but I’d just like to say regarding inviting family who may not understand, this is all the more reason to make them apart of whatever you do.

This is your daughters’ First Communion Mass, and there will be few greater or more important events in their entire lives - this is the beginning of their Eucharistic embrace with Christ. You can invite them to celebrate with you after Mass. This does not imply that a celebration need to be a certain way, or expensive, or anything in particular, but there are few things in life more worthy of a celebration, and inviting and sharing with those who may not quite “get it” can give them the opportunity to have their eyes opened to what your family will now share, and how wonderful it truly is.

Just my $.02. Congrats to your family!
 
Yay for twins! 🙂 (I’m a twin :o)

As others have noted, there is no typical way it is celebrated everywhere other than being during Mass. 🙂 My parish has it’s own separate Mass for First Communion mainly because of space and seating issues. For my daughter, the number of kids receiving was about equal to the number of pews. So each family got one pew. We very tightly squeezed in the grandparents and my daughter’s godmother. If my family lived nearby, I’m sure we would have had more come (and they would have been sitting or standing in the way back).

The way you celebrate afterwards is completely up to you, but I think it is best to put the focus on the sacrament rather than the after-party. I think we did pizza and cake and a few presents. I tend to subscribe to the “something religious and something fun” philosophy of child gift-giving. I wouldn’t give the kid something like an xBox or an iPad (that could potentially eclipse the religious aspects of the day). But a book or a toy that I know they would enjoy—in addition to a rosary, Bible, papal blessing, etc.—I think is nice so that it’s a positive experience and happy memory all around.

It would absolutely be appropriate to include your son, too. What an exciting time for your family!

God bless!
 
1ke said:
If you don’t think they’d understand or comply with the Catholic request to refrain from communion, just invite them to the party afterwards, not the mass.

Or, just go out as an immediate family-- you and your spouse and the kids.
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This is what my husband would rather do :cool:
Maximilan_Kolbe said:
Lots of good advice here as usual, but I’d just like to say regarding inviting family who may not understand, this is all the more reason to make them apart of whatever you do.

This is your daughters’ First Communion Mass, and there will be few greater or more important events in their entire lives - this is the beginning of their Eucharistic embrace with Christ. You can invite them to celebrate with you after Mass. This does not imply that a celebration need to be a certain way, or expensive, or anything in particular, but there are few things in life more worthy of a celebration, and inviting and sharing with those who may not quite “get it” can give them the opportunity to have their eyes opened to what your family will now share, and how wonderful it truly is.

Just my $.02. Congrats to your family!
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That is an interesting perspective and you make very valid points. Thanks!
Joe_5859 said:
Yay for twins! 🙂 (I’m a twin :o)

As others have noted, there is no typical way it is celebrated everywhere other than being during Mass. 🙂 My parish has it’s own separate Mass for First Communion mainly because of space and seating issues. For my daughter, the number of kids receiving was about equal to the number of pews. So each family got one pew. We very tightly squeezed in the grandparents and my daughter’s godmother. If my family lived nearby, I’m sure we would have had more come (and they would have been sitting or standing in the way back).
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Yes, our parish has a separate Mass as well on a Saturday afternoon for those reasons. I’d probably host something right that evening (if I can convince DH).
It would absolutely be appropriate to include your son, too. What an exciting time for your family!
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God bless!
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Thanks! Lots to look forward to!
 
One last question…are formal portraits generally done for FHC?

I’m thinking it would be nice to get portraits done of all my kids in their attire since the ones I have now are getting outdated.

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice!
 
slh3016 said:
One last question…are formal portraits generally done for FHC?

I’m thinking it would be nice to get portraits done of all my kids in their attire since the ones I have now are getting outdated.

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice!
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Do whatever you want to do. If you want formal portraits, do them.
 
slh3016 said:
One last question…are formal portraits generally done for FHC?

I’m thinking it would be nice to get portraits done of all my kids in their attire since the ones I have now are getting outdated.

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice!
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Again, that’s really up to you. My parish had a photographer to take pictures of the group as well as each individual child that wanted one. We opted to do it on our own since we could do it much cheaper that way. For the parish photographer, it was like $20 for one 8x10. At Portrait Innovations, it was about that much for 30 or so prints of various sizes. It’s not necessary at all, of course, but it does make for a nice picture to put on the wall. 🙂
 
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