THE AGE OF FIRST COMMUNION

New Zealand Tablet, 16 March 1911, Page 471

THE AGE OF FIRST COMMUNION

TEXT OF THE DECREE THE SACRED CONGREGATION OF THE SACRAMENTS Decree on the age of those who are to be admitted U their First Eucharistic Communion. Christ's Example. The pages of the Gospel clearly witness to the extraordinary aftection shown by Christ to little children when He was on earth. It was His delight to be in their company; He was wont to lay, His hands upon them, to embrace them,' to bless them. And He was indignant at tlieir being turned away by His disciples, whom He rebuked in these grave words: Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of Heaven' (Mark x. 13, 14, 16). He showed sufficiently how highly He esteemed their innocence and candor of soul, when calling unto Him a little child, He said to His disciples:..' Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter- into the kingdom of heaven. "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven. And he that shall receive one such little "child in My receiveth Me' (Matt, xviii. 3,4, 5). " Infant Communion. Mindful of this, the Catholic Church, from its*very earliest beginnings, took care"to bring little children to Christ by Eucharistic Communion, which it was accustomed to administer even to children at the breast. This took place at Baptism, as was prescribed in almost all the ancient Rituals down to the thirteenth century, and in some places the custom lasted longer; among the Greeks and Easterns

it still obtains. In order, however, to remove the dangerthat children at the breast should reject especially the bread, the" custom prevailed from the beginning of J administering the Eucharist to them under the species of wine only. Nor was it at Baptism alone, but very frequently afterwards, that the infants were refreshed by the Divine food. For it was the custom of some Churches. to give the Eucharist to the little ones immediately after the clergy, and elsewhere after.. the Communion of the adults to give them the fragments remaining over. Postponement of Communion. v> This custom then grew obsolete in the Latin Church, and children began to take their place at the Holy Table only when they had a certain use of dawning reason, and some knowledge of this August Sacrament. . This new discipline which had already been accepted by some local synods, ,was confirmed by the solemn sanction of the Fourth General" Council of the Lateran, held in 1215, by the promulgation of the famous 21st Canon, whereby Sacramental Confession and Holy Communion are prescribed to the faithful, after they have attained the age of reason: ' Every one of the faithful of both sexes, after they come to the years of discretion, shall, in private, faithfully confess all their sins, at least once a year, to their own priest; and take care to fulfil to the best of their power the penance enjoined on them, receiving reverently; at least at Easter, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, unless, perhaps, by the counsel -of their own priest, for some reasonable cause, they judge it proper to abstain from it for a time.' The Council of Trent (Sess. XXI., on Communion, ch. 4), without in any way disapproving the ancient discipline of administering the Eucharist to little children before they had the use of reason, confirmed the Lateran Decree, and anathematised those who should not conform ,to it 'lf anyone denieth, that all and each _ of Christ's faithful of both sexes are bound, when they have attained to the years of discretion, to communicate every year, at least at Easter, in accordance with the precept of Holy Mother Church, let him be anathema' (Sess. XIII., on the Holy Eucharist, ch. 8, can. 9). •';..-...... In virtue, then, of the Lateran Decree just quoted and still in force, the faithful of Christ, on reaching the years of discretion, are bound by the obligation of going to the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist at least once a year. / ;' : Deferment of Confession. - In fixing this age of reason, or of discretion, however, not a few errors and deplorable abuses have . been introduced in the course of time. For there were those who considered that a different age of discretion was to be fixed for the reception of the Sacrament of Penance, and for the reception of the Holy Eucharist. For Penance they considered that the age of discretion was that a* which wrong could be distinguished from right, and therefore at which sin could be committed. But, for the Eucharist, they held that a more advanced age was required at which a fuller knowledge of the truths of faith • and a more mature preparation of soul could be obtained. And so, according to the different local customs or opinions of men, the age for the first reception of the Eucharist was fixed at ten or twelve years in some places, at fourteen years, and even more, in others, and in the meantime children or youths not having attained the prescribed age were forbidden to approach Eucharistic Communion. Consequent Evils. This custom, whereby, under the pretext of safeguarding the honor due to the August Sacrament, the faithful are kept away from It, became the cause of many evils. For it came to pass that the innocence of the age of childhood, torn from the embrace of Christ, was not nourished by the sap of the interior life; whence this also followed that youth, deprived of its all-powerful protection, surrounded by so many" snares, on losing its innocence, fell headlong into vice before it had tasted of the Sacred Mysteries. Now, : even if the First Communion is preceded by more diligent instruction, and a careful Sacramental Confessionwhich is not everywhere the casenevertheless the loss of baptismal innocence is ever to be _ regretted, a loss which, had the Eucharist . been received in more tender years, might perhaps have been. avoided. No less to be condemned is the custom existing in many places of forbidding Sacramental Confession to children who are not yet admitted to the Holy Table, or of not giving them absolution. _ Whence it comes to pass that, caught in the toils of sins possibly grave, they may long remain in great danger. But what is most serious is that in some places children who have not yet been: admitted to their First Communion are not even allowed, when in imminent danger of death, to be strengthened .by the Holy Viaticum, and at their death are carried to their grave like infants, and so are not assisted by the Church's suffrages. : r

Origin in Jansenism. Such is the harm done by those who insist more than is right on making extraordinary preparation precede the First Communion, probably, not noticing that such kind of precaution has its roots in Jansenistic errors, maintaining that the Most Holy, Eucharist is a reward, not the remedy of human weakness. . And yet the contrary was certainly held by the Council of Trent when it taught that the Eucharist is the antidote whereby we .are delivered from

daily faults and preserved from deadly sins' (Sess.XIII.., * On the Holy Eucharist/ ch. 2), which doctrine has recently been more emphatically insisted upon by the Sacred Congregation of the Council in the Decree of December 20, 1905, whereby access to daily Communion was thrown open to all, old and young, two conditions only being imposed: the state of grace and a right intention. Certainly, seeing that in ancient times the remains of the Sacred Species were distributed to little children and even to those who were still at the breast, there appears to be no sound reason why an extraordinary preparation should be demanded from little ones, who ,living in the most happy condition of their first candor and innocence, stand in the greatest need of that mystical food on account of the many snares and dangers of the present time. The Lateran Decree. The abuses we are condemning arise from the fact that those who assign a different age for penance and Holy Eucharist have not defined with precision and accuracy what is meant by the ; age of discretion. The Lateran Council, however, requires one and the same age for both Sacraments, since it imposed as one the joint obligation of Confession and Communion. And so, just as for Confession the age of discretion is held to be that at which wrong can be distinguished from right, that is, at which a certain use of reason is attained: so, too, for Communion the age of discretion must be held to be that at which the Eucharistic Bread can be distinguished from ordinary bread; which, again, is the same age at which the child attains the use of reason. Nor was the matter otherwise understood by the principal contemporary commentators of the Council of the Lateran. For, from the history of the Church it is clear that many Synods and Episcopal Decrees issued in the thirteenth century shortly after the Lateran Council, admitted children of seven years to make their First Communion. There is, moreover, a testimony of the highest authority in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: ' As soon as children begin to have a certain use of reason, so as to be able to conceive devotion to the Sacrament (of the Eucharist), then may this Sacrament be given to them ('Summa Theol."' 111., q. 80, a. 9, ad 3). These words Ledesma thus explains: ■ ' I say, following the consent of all, that the Eucharist must be given to all who have the Use of reason, and however soon they may possess that use of reason; even though the child ouly knows in a confused manner what it is doing' (In St. Thom., p. 3, q. 80, a. 9, Dub. 6). The same passage is explained by Vasquez in these words: As soon as the child comes to this use of reason, forthwith is he so bound by the divine law that the Church herself is entirely unable to free him from the obligation' (In 3 P. St. Thom., Disp. 214, c. 4, n. 43). St. Antoninus taught the same doctrine when he wrote: 'But when (the child) is capable of malice, when, namely, it can sin mortally, then is it obliged by the precept of Confession, and consequently by the precept of Communion ' (P. 111., tit. 14, c. 2, §"6). The Council of Trent. The Tridentine Council also forces us to the same conclusion. For while it recalls in Sess. XXI. ch. 4 'that little children who have not attained to the use of reason are not by any necessity obliged to the Sacramental Communion of the Eucharist,' the one reason it assigns is, that they are not able to sin: Forasmuch as they cannot, at that age, lose the grace they have already acquired of being the sons of God.' Whence it is clear that the idea of the Council is that children are bound by the necessity and obligation of Communion when they are able to lose grace by sin. With this agree the words of the Roman Council held under Benedict XIII., which teach that the obligation of . receiving the Eucharist begins ' when boys and girls have reached tjre years of discretion, that is, at the age at which they are able to distinguish the sacramental food, which is no other than the true Body of Jesus Christ, from common and ordinary bread, and are able to draw nigh with due piety and religion (' Istruzione per quei che debbono la prima volta ammettersi alia S. Communione.' Append, xxx., p. 11.). The Roman Catechism says: 'As for the age at which the Sacred Mysteries are to be given to children, none can determine it better than the father, ■ and the priest to whom they confess their sins. It is their business to find out, by asking the children, whether they have acquired any knowledge of this admirable Sacrament, and have a desire for it' (P. 11. ' On the Sacrament of the Eucharist,' n. 63). The Age of Discretion. From all this, we gather that the age of discretion for Communion is that at which the child is able so to distinguish Eucharistic bread from common and material bread, as to be able devoutly to approach the altar. Consequently no perfect knowledge -of the things of faith is required, since some elements alone' suffice, that is a certain knowledge; nor is the full use of reason required, since the incipient use is enough, that is a certain use of reason. Wherefore the deferring of Communion, and the fixing of a more advanced age for receiving It, is to be absolutely condemned, and the Apostolic See has many times condemned it. Thus Pius"lX., of happy memory, in Cardinal Antonelli's letter to the Bishops of France, March 12,

1866, strongly disapproved of the custom, growing in many dioceses, of postponing the First Communion to a more mature and a fixed age. The Sacred Congregation of the Council, on March 15, 1851 corrected a chapter of the Provincial Council of Rouen, whereby children were forbidden to approach Holy Communion before the age of twelve. In a similar way did this Sacred Congregation of the Discipline of the Sacraments act in the Strasburg case on March 25, 1910, in which the point was raised as to whether children of twelve or of fourteen might be admitted to Holy Communion, and the answer given -was: ' Boys . and girls, as soon as they have reached the years of discretion, that is, the use of reason, are to be admitted to the Holy Table." Having given mature consideration to all these point*, and in order that the above-mentioned abuses should be entirely removed, and that- children from their very tenderest years should adhere to Jesus Christ, live His life, and find protection from the dangers of corruption, this Sacred Congregatioin of the Discipline of the Sacraments, at a General Session held on July 15, 1910, has judged it opportune to lay down the following rules concerning the First Communion of Children, to be observed everywhere : Regulations. I. The age of discretion, alike for Confession and for Holy Communion, is the age at which the child begins to use its reason, that is about its seventh year, or later or even sooner. From that time begins the obligation of satisfying the twofold precept of Confession and Communion. ' 11. A full and perfect knowledge of Christian doctrine is not necessary for first Confession nor for. First Communion. But the child must afterwards gradually learn the whole Catechism in the measure of its capacity. 111. The religious knowledge required in a child, in order that it should fittingly prepare itself for First Communion, is that whereby it understands according to its capacity the mysteries of faith necessary as the means of salvation, and distinguishes the Eucharistic bread from common and material bread, so as to approach the Holy Eucharist with such devotion as befits its age. IV. The obligation of the precept of Confession and Communion, binding the child, falls principally upon those who have charge of it, that is upon the parents, confessor, teachers, and parish priest. To the father, however, or whoever occupies his place, and to the confessor it belongs according to the Roman Catechism, to admit the child to its First Communion. V. Once or several times in the year let parish priests take care to announce and hold a general Communion of children and to admit thereto, not only new communicants, but also others who, with the consent of their parents or of their confessor, as above stated, have alreadv previously Sartaken at the sacred . altar. For both alike let some ays of instruction and preparation precede. VI. Those who have charge of children must take the utmost care that after their First Communion the said children should approach the Holy Table very often, arid, if it be possible, even daily, as Jesus Christ and our Holy Mother Church desire it, and that they should do so with such devotion of soul as their age allows. Moreover, let those who are in charge remember the most grave duty incumbent upon them of seeing that the children are present at the public lessons of Catechism, or of supplying religious instruction in some other way. VII. The custom of not admitting children to Confession, or of.never absolving them, although they have attained the use of reason, is to be absolutely disapproved. Wherefore local Ordinaries will take care that it is entirely abolished, even by the invoking of the remedies of Canon Law. VIII. The refusal to administer Viaticum and Extreme Unction to children who have attained the use of reason, and their burial with the rites reserved to infants, are utterly detestable abuses. Let the local Ordinaries take severe measures against those who do not abandon this custom.. . Our Most Holy Lord Pius X. in an audience on the seventh of the current month approved all these decisions sanctioned by the Cardinals of this Sacred Congregation, and commanded ' this present Decree to be published and promulgated. He has commanded each of the Ordinaries to make known this Decree, not only to the parish priests and clergy, but also to the people, to whom he wills that it should be read every year, at the time of the Paschal precept, in the vulgar tongue. The Ordinaries themselves, at the end of each period of five years, will have in the returns of the diocese to render an account to the Holy See of the observance of this Decree. All things to the contrary notwithstanding. Given at Rome at the palace of the same Sacred Congregation, on the Bth day of August, 1910. D. Card. Ferbata, Prefect. Ph. Giustini, Secretary.