As my sister belonged to the Sodality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, every time a children’s solemn Communion came round, she took me along to renew my own. On one occasion my aunt took her little daughter to see the ceremony, and Jacinta was fascinated by the “angels” strewing flowers. From that day on, she sometimes left us while we were playing, and went off to gather an apron-full of flowers. Then she came back and strewed them over me, one by one.
“Jacinta, why on earth are you doing that?”
“I’m doing what the little angels do: I’m strewing you with flowers.”
Every year, on a big feast, probably Corpus Christi, my sister used to prepare the dresses for the children chosen to represent the angels in procession. They walked beside the canopy, strewing flowers. I was always among the ones chosen, and one day after my sister had tried on my dress, I told Jacinta about the coming feast, and how I was going to strew flowers over Jesus. The little one begged me to ask my sister to let her go as well. The two of us went along to make our request. My sister said she could go, and tried a dress on Jacinta. At the rehearsals, she explained how we were to strew the flowers before the Child Jesus.
“Will we see Him?” asked Jacinta.
“Yes.” replied my sister. “The parish priest will be carrying Him.”
Jacinta jumped for joy, and kept on asking how much longer we had to wait for the feast. The longed-for day arrived at last, and Jacinta was beside herself with excitement. The two of us took our places near the altar. Later, in the procession, we walked beside the canopy, each of us with a basket full of flowers. Where ever my sister had told us to strew the flowers, I strewed mine before Jesus but, in spite of all my signs I made to Jacinta, I couldn’t get her to strew a single one. She kept her eyes fixed on the priest, and that was all.
When the ceremony was over, my sister took us outside the church and asked: “Jacinta, why didn’t you strew your flowers before Jesus?”
“Because I didn’t see Him.” Jacinta then asked me: “But did you see the Child Jesus?”
“Of course not. Don’t you know that the Child Jesus in the Host can’t be seen? He’s hidden! He’s the one we receive in Communion!”
“And you, when you go to Communion, do you talk to Him?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then, why don’t you see Him?”
“Because He’s hidden.”
“I’m going to ask my mother if I can go to Communion, too.”
“The parish priest won’t let you until you are ten years old.”
“But you’re not ten yet, and you go to Communion!”
“Because I know the whole catechism, and you don’t.”
After this, my two companions asked me to teach them the catechism. So I became their catechist, and they learned with exceptional enthusiasm. But though I could answer any question they put to me, when it came to teaching, I could only remember things here and there.
This led Jacinta to say to me one day: “Teach us some more; we know all those.”
I had to admit, I could remember things only when people questioned me on them, and I added: “Ask your mother to let you go to the church to learn your catechism.”
The two children, who so ardently desired to receive the “Hidden Jesus”, as they called Him, went to ask their mother, and my aunt agreed. But she rarely let them go there, for she said: “The church is a good way from here, and you are very small. In any case, the priest won’t give Holy Communion before you’re ten years old.”
Jacinta never stopped asking me questions about the Hidden Jesus, and I remember how, one day, she asked me: “How is it that so many people receive the little Hidden Jesus at the same time? Is there one small piece for each person?”
“Not at all! Don’t you see that there are many Hosts, and that there is a Child Jesus in all of them?”
What a lot of nonsense I must have told her!