First Communion is generally understood as a rite of passage in
which seven- and eight-year-old Catholic children transform from
baptized participants in the Church to members of the body of
Christ, the universal Catholic Church. This official Church
account, however, ignores what the rite actually may mean to its
participants. In
When I Was a Child, Susan Ridgely Bales
demonstrates that the accepted understanding of a religious ritual
can shift dramatically when one considers the often neglected
perspective of child participants.
Bales followed Faith Formation classes and interviewed
communicants, parents, and priests in an African American parish
and in a parish containing both white and Latino congregations. By
letting the children speak for themselves through their words,
drawings, and actions,
When I Was a Child stresses the
importance of rehearsal, the centrality of sensory experiences, and
the impact of expectations in the communicants' interpretations of
the Eucharist. In the first sustained ethnographic study of how
children interpret and help shape their own faith, Bales finds that
children's perspectives give new contours to the traditional
understanding of a common religious ritual. Ultimately, she argues
that scholars of religion should consider age as distinct a factor
as race, class, and gender in their analyses.