First Communion is an important event in the life of the parish and the lives of many children. Michael H. Marchal offers suggestions for a rite to mark and celebrate with children, their families and the whole parish community.

After several decades of having the years-long, coordinated reform of the liturgy of the Roman Rite mandated by Vatican Council II not merely questioned but actively opposed by supporters of ‘Tradition’, Pope Francis’s document Traditionis custodes has decisively reiterated the principle that there is only one ‘form’ of the Roman Rite. In media discussions of this change, attention is clearly centred on the Mass, but there were other, equally important aspects. In some parishes, in addition to the Tridentine Mass, all the other sacraments were celebrated in the older form. As a Chicago friend remarked, there were several ‘bubble’ parishes in that city where it was still 1962. Yet the final vote on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy had been 2,147 to 4; the call for the reform was unequivocal and is as valid today as it was 60 years ago.