ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the parish authorities and highlights the responses made by the families of first communicants. The rationale for the process of preparation for first communion in the first subject parish can be located in the personal convictions of its parish priest. The first parish emphasized the preparation of the parents, through a series of three meetings led by the priest and the lay-women of the 'A Team'. In the second parish the responsibility for all preparation, of both children and parents, lay with the school, which also traditionally managed the first communion Masses. The priest acknowledged that in the encounter between the parents of first communicants and the parish as institution, the various parties faced each other in an unequal relationship. The contours of that power were thrown into relief by the challenge for leadership of the first communion process that sister Margaret Margaret mounted during my period of observation.
