Your First Communion

Dear Nico,

It was a lovely surprise to hear that you are going to make your first communion, that you have decided to commune with Jesus, to see the world through his eyes and to be inspired by his vital breath. It is a wonderful choice. I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart!

Life, all life worthy of the name, is about communing, about being in a creative relationship with all beings. And there are many ways of committing oneself and living it, many ways of expressing and ritualising it, depending on the diversity of places, times and cultures. Communion with Jesus is one way, neither better nor worse than others, of living in grateful, committed, supportive communion with all living beings. It is the Christian way, that of those of us who, 2000 years later, continue to be inspired by his memory, his vital wisdom, his living figure. A truly diverse approach, and one that embraces diversity. We are delighted that you, too, on your first communion, are joining our common table. Welcome, Nico, bienvenido! Herzlich willkommen! Sois le bienvenu!

We call it your first communion, but, in actual fact, your entire story, since before the beginning of time, is a story of communion. When you didn’t even exist, that happy encounter in the Castilian capital of Valladolid between your mother from the Peruvian Andes and your father from Spanish Cantabria was, in a way, your first communion. And that first tiny cell, which was not yet you, was already communing every day with its whole environment, with what was closest and with what was farthest away, and you, the marvellous fruit of countless creative first communions, emerged out of that first cell in constant contact, in unceasing evolution. Ever since you were born, every day has been your first communion. And so has that day when your parents had the courage to leave Castile with you and set off for Switzerland, that exodus in search of bread and work, with its hardships and its charms, to discover new lands, peoples and languages.

Every day you commune with the ever-new sunlight and the ever-new air you breathe, with the ever-new vital energy that comes to us from the infinite universe and from the common earth mother that sustains and nourishes us. Whenever you listen or speak, laugh or cry, study and learn about what is really happening in the world, whenever you are outraged by the politics and economics governing the planet, whenever you allow admiration, tenderness and compassion to spring from within you, whenever you say to yourself, “I am Nico. Here I am. What can I do?” you are embarking on life and it is your first communion.

So at the age of 14, full of energy and promise, why are you going to celebrate your first communion together with your friend Sofia in Bülach next Saturday, 14 June? It is not because you have not received communion until now, but because you want to continue receiving communion every day. And you want to celebrate it in communion with Jesus, sitting at his table, communing with his life, sharing his bread and his wine, reviving his memory, embodying it in life by sharing the open table.

A very common and characteristic practice of Jesus was precisely that: sharing the open table. In a religious society where there were strict rules about when one could eat and when one could not, with whom one could eat and with whom one could not, what one could eat and what one could not, Jesus practised sharing the open table. He envisioned the future as a large, open table from which no one should be excluded. He taught that no one on earth would suffer hunger or poverty if those who had more shared their wealth. It’s as simple as that. And he dreamed that it was possible, and that dream cost him his life. But before he was crucified, he held a festive dinner full of hope, and taking bread and wine, he said to his followers: “Eat, drink in memory of me, and keep me present. Rekindle hope, and each day look forward to the new future we dream of.”

At your first communion on Saturday and every day, Nico, you make this dream your own. In these times of global uncertainty, we raise our glasses with you, and you raise your glass with us for the new Earth that Jesus envisioned from the distance and looked forward to in his lifetime: a tremendous Communion at a festive, multi-coloured, happy table.

José Arregi, Aizarna (Basque Country), 12 June, 2025.

www.josearregi.com

Translated by Sarah J. Turtle