The church is a community of believers–that’s the way the Acts of the Apostles, which we’re reading after Easter, describes it. We look so often at church leaders, like Peter and Paul, and we miss the crucial part ordinary believers play. They’re more than passive spectators.

Some time ago visiting a parish, the director of religious education was getting the young people ready for confirmation and first communion. “The parents are the ones who make these things stick,” she said. “If they don’t bring the young people to church; if they don’t think it’s important, neither will they. You can have the best preparation program around, but if parents don’t back it up with their own example, the young people wont be back.”

Families and friends still turn out for First Communions, I notice. Good they do. But in some way the community– families, friends, all of us– have to communicate our belief that sacraments are important signs of the presence of the Risen Christ.

We’re a community of believers.