In a time-honored tradition, the 22 second graders in Raquel Fuentes’ class at Sacred Heart School in Washington prepared for their upcoming First Holy Communion, but with a special guest on Jan. 19, when they were joined by Cardinal Wilton Gregory in a Zoom meeting.

The brief session over Zoom was described by Cardinal Gregory as “the nicest meeting I’ll have all day.” It was no small compliment, because that afternoon he would be giving the invocation at a pre-inauguration prayer service for victims of COVID-19 with President-Elect Joe Biden.

Bracketed by prayers — one written for the occasion by the class, and later by Hail Marys recited in English and Spanish — the students politely peppered the cardinal with questions.

“What is your job every day?” asked Owen Kilgallon.

“The first thing I do when I get up is go to the chapel, which is in my house,” said Cardinal Gregory, saying that he prays for many people. “Then I have a lot of meetings.”

“Where do you live?” Cyndy Williams wanted to know.

“I live on top of a church,” the cardinal explained, describing his apartment on the top floor of Our Lady Queen of the Americas Church. Anticipating a question of importance to his audience, he then volunteered that he had no traditional pets, because he’s too busy to care for one.

He said he’d once been asked about his pets by another second-grader, named Veronica. A few weeks after he explained why he didn’t have one, the girl and her mother came to his office in Atlanta to deliver two “pets,” pet rocks Veronica had made for him.

Holding up a painted stone with googly eyes, Cardinal Gregory noted that it is named Beulah, and he keeps it in his home. The other is at his Pastoral Center office.

”Beulah has eyes,” he pointed out. “They kind of bounce around every once in a while, especially when I’m dusting her.”

Cardinal Gregory came to the meeting prepared for a key element of elementary school classrooms — show and tell. He showed the students the red biretta placed on his head by Pope Francis when he became a cardinal about six weeks earlier and described the pope as very friendly and loving. “He likes to laugh and smile,” he said. “He’s like your grandpa.”

The chat with the students covered his interests — music and sometimes golfing — his ordination, long enough ago that some of their teachers weren’t yet born; and his own First Communion as a 6th grader, held at the Easter Vigil because he was becoming a Catholic.

“I wasn’t born a Catholic,” he explained. “I was very excited because I really wanted to be a Catholic. I’m still trying.”

He suggested to the students that as their First Communion approaches they think of the Eucharist as when Jesus “comes to us as our friend,” and that they try to be close to the Blessed Mother because she knew Jesus his whole life, including when he was their age. “She loved him like all of your moms love you.”

Sacred Heart Principal Elise Heil said there’s no scheduled date for First Communion yet, as COVID precautions prevail.

In the photo above, a second grader from Sacred Heart School in Washington participates in the Zoom meeting with Cardinal Gregory on Jan. 19. In the photo below, a Sacred Heart student shows the cardinal a poster congratulating him on his new role in the Catholic Church. (Screen captures/top photo by Andrew Biraj, bottom photo courtesy of Sacred Heart School)

During the Zoom meeting with Cardinal Gregory, the second graders also recited a special prayer written by the class:

Dear God, You are our light. You are our shield. 

God, thank You for protecting us. Thank You for Jesus Christ. Thank You for our homes and thank You for being in our hearts. 

God, please help Cardinal Gregory get all of his work done, be a great Cardinal and help him stay safe. 

God, please help our second grade family be special, to stay alive during this pandemic, and to bless all of our homes. 

Amen.