The Age of Reason

I’m in the bad books with my brother and his family as I refused to go to my niece’s first Holy Communion. This, as I understand it, is when the Roman Catholic Church consider her to have reached the age of ‘reason’ and claim that from that point on she can understand exactly what she is doing. I’m not sure how the Catholic Church would respond if the Scottish Government and legal system adopted the same parameter. However, whilst that may be a matter of debate, what is not is how they welcome children into this new age of reason. They are given bread and wine and told that this not only represents but has become, through prayer, the body and blood of Christ!

Whilst the actual existence of a Jesus Christ in history is questionable, if there were such a person, and he believed that he was the son of some non existent god, then I am afraid that he suffered from some form of mental illness. Maybe it was his reported baptism by John which set off his illness. What is not questionable is the ability of prayer to transform bread and wine into the body and blood of anyone. It can't be done.  However let us say that we accept that it can ‘miraculously’ happen. If so would anyone of sane mind suggest that we should actually eat the body and blood of someone? What sort of sacrificial ritual is this? Are we are teaching our children that the reasoned thing to do is to be a cannibal?

I’m afraid my form of reason is somewhat different than that of the Roman Catholic Church and at the expense of upsetting friends and family, I could never endorse their form.