Cilla and Veronica are all charged up about Veronica’s sister’s First Holy Communion. She gets to wear a “beauty-full” white dress and a veil, they’ll have a party afterwards, and she’ll get presents!
All the Unitarians have is a naming ceremony, which, of course, you don’t have to do (because whatever Supreme Being(s) there is (are) forbid that you’d have to do anything regarding religion, spirituality or whatever reason you are a Unitarian.) My parents didn’t have me done because my father said it was “foolishness imitating foolishness.”
There have been seemingly endless “rehearsals.” Veronica invited Cilla to go with her.
“Watch out you don’t get hit with a yardstick” Ed cautioned her. “Nuns have been known to do that.”
“Oh, Daddy, not anymore. Veronica’s mom told me.”
Nobody got hit with a yardstick or even yelled at. Veronica’s mother introduced Cilla to the nun in charge, who had said, “Maybe next year, you can make your First Communion.”
“Oh, Mommy, can I? Please, please, please!”
“We have to give it serious thought,” I said. When I was ten years old, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t be one of those mothers who said “We’ll see.” “This is a very big decision. We’ll have to pray about it.”
“She just wants the presents,” Josh sneered.
“That’s not nice.” I pounced on the teachable moment. “Never criticize anyone’s religious ideas. It’s all right to ask questions if you’re curious, but you have to be respectful. And anyway, you just get money that your parents put in your college fund and things like Bibles and rosaries.”
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