Children and Communion

 The long custom in The Episcopal Church is to invite to Holy Communion all persons who are admitted to communion in their own tradition.  In practice, this is often spoken of as inviting “all baptized Christians” to join us around the altar.

Other churches differ. In the Roman Catholic Church, children are admitted to communion at an early age, usually about 6 or 7 years old. After some preparatory work, they experience their “first communion.” Confirmation comes later.  By contrast, in the Orthodox Churches, babies are baptized and confirmed at the same time and admitted to communion right away--receiving the wine on a spoon. This approach emphasizes the grace of baptism and the full membership of each baptized child.  

Anglican tradition supports such practices in another way.  

Our tradition suggests that a very good way to grow spiritually is to “experience then understand.”  The idea of baptism followed by confirmation is an example of this.  One receives God’s grace through baptism, but only later does one come to understand what has taken place.  Some have suggested, and indeed, the practice was at one time, that not all children of any age should receive, but that children come to a point of appreciation and readiness to share fully in the Eucharist.  And while we may not have had a “first communion” (though some more Anglo-Catholic parishes did) we wanted our children to “know what they were doing.”  However, as far back as the 1970 General Convention of The Episcopal Church, admission to Communion of baptized but unconfirmed children was authorized without comment on their age.

Let me say more about their “understanding” what they are doing.  It is important that all who receive communion appreciate the importance and wonder of what they are sharing in, but “understanding” can be a difficult criterion to apply. Would we would want to exclude those with learning difficulties from receiving communion because their conceptual skills are not as ours?  I doubt it.

There are a couple of other things to take into account as well.  First, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer makes clear that Baptism is the initiatory rite of the Christian Community. In the words of the Catechism, “Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.”  [p. 858 BCP]

Second, there is a movement within western Christendom to affirm baptism as the only necessary act of initiation into the Church Universal.  The “Welcome” we say as a congregation to a newly person emphasizes this: “We receive you into the household of God.  Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”  This is why many Christian groups, beginning in Apostolic times, have never resisted baptizing infants—not because we fear that unbaptized children might be damned, but because we want children to be incorporated into the Body of Christ and “branded” as God’s own. Having said this, we cannot logically exclude baptized children, full members of the Church, from Holy Communion.  Their baptism is not incomplete in some way because of their age.

But what of preparation?  All of us promise at the baptism of children and adults to help them grow in the faith.  And we all have the responsibility to help our children understand this Great Mystery.  We can rely on Children’s Chapel, on formation, and on word of mouth to help us help them understand; we can use printed resources to help us as parents teach them.  But this is really more about fully appreciating Communion; not “becoming ready.”  Still, parents can decide that they want their children to wait and the sky will not fall. 

Peace, Jerry+