Do you have to wait to be confirmed to take Communion as an adult?

[1ke]

I’ve never heard this before.

I’m not exactly sure what the “this” is you’ve never heard of.

It is entirely possible that an adult would have never been confirmed — perhaps spiritual instruction fell by the wayside somewhere in their youth, after their first communion, and they just never got around to it.

Correct. And such a person could and should continue to receive the sacrament of Eucharist and prepare themselves for confirmation as an adult.

Does the Church have some sort of “cut-off age” and after that, you may not receive the Eucharist unless you are confirmed first?

The issue in this thread has been wrongly framed as having to be confirmed first. That isn’t the case at all.

What is at issue in this post is a baptized non-Catholic who has not yet been received into the Church. That is a person who is, on the whole, not admitted to communion. Exceptions are noted in canon law in canon 844 regarding non-Catholics admission to the sacraments of penance, communion, and anointing.

What governs reception of a baptized adult into full communion is not Canon Law, but rather the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, which came out of Vatican II. The Congregation for Divine Worship prepared the new Rite in 1972, Pope Paul VI approved it, then charged national bishops conferences to adapt from there. The one for the US was approved in 1986.

In the rite, baptized non-Catholics are to be received into the Church at Mass (normative). They are received into the Church by making a profession of faith, then they are confirmed, then then receive the Eucharist. This is because that is the order in the Mass (even in Catholic confirmation, it comes in the mass after the Liturgy of the Word and before the Liturgy of the Eucharist). If it is not the bishop who receives it is the priest delegated by the bishop. That priest has faculties to confirm the candidate within the rite of reception.

If the candidate is received into full communion outside of Mass, then a mass at which the candidate takes part (in communion) is to be “celebrated as soon as possible” to “make clear the connection between reception and Eucharistic communion”.

The Rite of Reception outside of Mass does not include confirmation. Confirmation would take place at a later date with the bishop, or delegated to the priest to confirm.

See No. 473-504 in the Rite book for these references.

 

[Vico]

I believe the Orthodox do Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist all together to infants and call it Christmation.

There is some variations among the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian Church of the East. For the Byzantine Catholic there are a few parts to Christian Initiation:

• Preparation for Baptism which includes anointing with the oil of the catechumens
• The Rite of Baptism which includes anointing with the oil of gladness
• The Holy Mystery of Chrismation which includes anointing with Holy Myron
• Holy Communion with tonsure.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I’ve never heard this before.

“This” = not being able to receive communion, as an adult, until having been confirmed first.

I misread the question, I am very sorry. I thought it was being asserted that an adult baptized Catholic, who for whatever reason had never been confirmed, was barred from receiving communion without being confirmed first.

 

[phil19034]

phil19034:

…
There are some bishops who are starting to promote a return to the traditional order of the Sacraments, which has always been maintained in Eastern Catholic Churches and for converts in the Latin Church.
…

Many times I have witnessed Byzantine Catholic infants, just month or so in age, receive the Holy Mysteries of Christian Initiation (Baptism, Chrismation, and Communion) at once, in the same Divine Liturgy. Infants not required to wait for the age of reason since the sacramental discipline emphases the mystic distribution of spiritual nourishment. Even in the Latin Church, up to the tenth century, the new born normally received in one kind – the Blood or Christ – but infants could receive in both kinds, and that norm continued until the end of the eleventh century when the practice of giving the Blood of Christ was curtailed to avoid spilling it. (See Migna (ed.), Patrologia Latina 161, 94 – Bishop Ivo Carnotensis).

yes… that’s what I said.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Missed that fact, thought we were talking about a cradle Catholic.

What is at issue in this post is a baptized non-Catholic who has not yet been received into the Church .

 

[Dovekin]

If you were not baptized as a Catholic or Orthodox, then your confirmation will be the first time you will be anointed with Chrism.

At baptism, infants are anointed with Chrism to signify sharing in the roles of the Anointed One: prophet, priest and king. These individuals will be confirmed at a proper age with an anointing that signifies the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Pentecost descent of the Spirit on the apostles.

All of these meanings are expressed in the anointing you will receive. You will be another anointed one, configured more closely to Christ the Anointed. You will become a part of the Church, the Body of the Anointed. (Christ is the Greek word for Anointed.)

When you are received into the Church, you are anointed so that you may speak God’s word like a prophet, choose God’s ways like a King, and offer your life with Christ Our High Priest. While these were implicit in your Baptism, they are explicit with your reception/confirmation. Your participation in Holy Communion will be the culmination of offering yourself with Christ during the prayers. You will truly be receiving Communion in unity with Christ and with the Holy Spirit.

 

[Dovekin]

I was trying to convey the teaching of St John Paul II, especially in Christifideles Laici 14. Here is the begining and end of that paragraph if anyone wants a better explanation than I offered.

A new aspect to the grace and dignity coming from Baptism is here introduced: the lay faithful participate, for their part, in the threefold mission of Christ as Priest, Prophet and King. This aspect has never been forgotten in the living tradition of the Church, as exemplified in the explanation which St. Augustine offers for Psalm 26: “David was anointed king. In those days only a king and a priest were anointed. These two persons prefigured the one and only priest and king who was to come, Christ (the name “Christ” means “anointed”). Not only has our head been anointed but we, his body, have also been anointed … therefore anointing comes to all Christians, even though in Old Testament times it belonged only to two persons. Clearly we are the Body of Christ because we are all “anointed” and in him are “christs”, that is, “anointed ones”, as well as Christ himself, “The Anointed One”. In a certain way, then, it thus happens that with head and body the whole Christ is formed”…

The participation of the lay faithful in the threefold mission of Christ as Priest, Prophet and King finds its source in the anointing of Baptism, its further development in Confirmation and its realization and dynamic sustenance in the Holy Eucharist. It is a participation given to each member of the lay faithful individually, in as much as each is one of the many who form the one Body of the Lord: in fact, Jesus showers his gifts upon the Church which is his Body and his Spouse. In such a way individuals are sharers in the threefold mission of Christ in virtue of their being members of the Church, as St. Peter clearly teaches, when he defines the baptized as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” ( 1 Pt 2:9). Precisely because it derives from Church communion, the sharing of the lay faithful in the threefold mission of Christ requires that it be lived and realized in communion and for the increase of communion itself. Saint Augustine writes: “As we call everyone ‘Christians’ in virtue of a mystical anointing, so we call everyone ‘priests’ because all are members of only one priesthood”.
John Paul II. Christifideles Laici 14

 

[Wesrock]

Yes, i guess the part I just don’t understand is why kids are allowed to take communion before confirmation but adults aren’t, most specifically in situations like my own where I’ve already been baptized and had first confession. But I guess maybe that’s just one of the things about the process I have to accept.

The children are already received into the Church. Adult catechumans and candidates are not until they receive the sacraments of initiation in a Catholic setting.

There’s a lot of opinions on the order of the sacraments (particularly confirmation and communion), but what’s at issue here is my first paragraph: reception into the Church.

 

[dochawk]

And I know I can’t take Communion, but at this point it makes me wonder why.

I’m trying to find an appropriate way to state this, but I’m not quite finding it. Please don’t take it as an attack . . .

The form of your questions shows that you’re not quite ready, and need the further catechesis.

One, never, under any circumstance, “takes” Communion. It is *received." While this may sound like mincing words, the distinction is extremely important.

That said, you can’t receive until you become a member of the Church, which will happen minutes before your confirmation, as explained in more detail by others here.

I believe the Orthodox do Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist all together to infants and call it Chrismation.

Close, but no cigar.

The EO and OO, and most of the EC, have never varied from the ancient practice of all three occurring at the same liturgy. However,r “confirmation” is the western word for “chrysmation”, which is the second Sacraments of the three historically administered together. During the liturgy, we do all of the baptism (if multiple), followed immediately by all of the chrysmations.

hawk

 

[thistle]

That said, you can’t receive until you become a member of the Church, which will happen minutes before your confirmation, as explained in more detail by others here.

That is not correct as I said in an earlier post.

Let me repeat it. At Easter in 1992 when I became a Catholic the sequence was as follows:

1. At Easter, on the Saturday, the priest heard my Confession.
2. On the following day, Sunday, I became a Catholic.
3. At Mass on the day I became Catholic I received Communion.
4. I, like all others in our RCIA group, were confirmed 6 months later.

 

[dochawk]

That is not correct as I said in an earlier post.

No, you’re just not seeing that the “typical” and what happened in your particular case are not inconsistent.

Communion cannot be received prior to becoming Catholic; that’s an absolute.

For adult converts in the US, the norm is profession, then confirmation, then the Eucharist, all at the same Mass.

If for some reason Confirmation does not happen (which, again, is not the norm, but an exception), there isn’t a general reason that Communion would not occur at the same Mass as profession and reception.

For whatever reason, your reception deviated from the normative practice. That doesn’t make it invalid, nor does it make it standard practice.

 

[thistle]

For whatever reason, your reception deviated from the normative practice. That doesn’t make it invalid, nor does it make it standard practice.

The only point I was making is that the Church does not have a globally required sequence and that each Bishops Conference can decide how it is done in their country.

 

[HeDa]

The new worldwide norm now since a couple of years is that all baptised adults receive the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist when they are received into the Catholic Church. Bishops grant the local parish priest permission to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation in these cases.

In 2014 when I was received into the Church, the bishop was coming a month later so that parish always had the adults confirmed then. In 2017 I was a sponsor (in the same parish) and all adults were confirmed so I think there was a change in 2017.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a2.htm

 

[Dovekin]

The new worldwide norm now since a couple of years is that all baptised adults receive the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist when they are received into the Catholic Church. Bishops grant the local parish priest permission to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation in these cases.

I do not think this is new. It is envisioned in the rite, the text for receiving baptized persons. The priest who receives someone into the Church can confirm them at the reception; If a bishop allows a priest to receive someone into full communion, he is giving him authority to confirm. That is how the original RCIA was written, and it was written like that so confirmation would precede first Communion.

Participating in the Eucharist should be the culmination of reception. Deferring confirmation until after their first communion displaces it from the process of reception, so it should rarely be done. Unless a bishop decides otherwise…

 

[JulianN]

The only point I was making is that the Church does not have a globally required sequence and that each Bishops Conference can decide how it is done in their country.

I’m gathering you are not in the U.S. If the OP is, then the norm is as @dochawk described, and it has been for quite some time.

 

[Phemie]

The new worldwide norm now since a couple of years is that all baptised adults receive the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist when they are received into the Catholic Church. Bishops grant the local parish priest permission to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation in these cases.

In 2014 when I was received into the Church, the bishop was coming a month later so that parish always had the adults confirmed then. In 2017 I was a sponsor (in the same parish) and all adults were confirmed so I think there was a change in 2017.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a2.htm

While they need their bishop’s permission to baptize adults or receive them into full communion, Canon Law gives the priest the faculty to confirm those adults they baptize or receive into full communion.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

I had thought that Confirmation and Reception into the church were the same thing. This is more complicated than I had realized! Fortunately, I did go through RCIA and got the whole nine yards on the Easter Vigil, including first communion.

What blew my mind after becoming Catholic and attending Mass regularly was seeing these little kids toddle up and receive communion. ( ! ) Really, some of them looked incredibly young. How can they even know what they are receiving at that age? As somebody here was saying, there are suggestions that the age of first communion be moved till after the confirmation. I think that makes more sense.

When I was a Lutheran, we went through catechism in our junior high years and then got confirmed and received our first communion at the same time, when we were about 14 years old. I think it was assumed that by then, we would know what we were receiving and what the sacrament was all about.

 

[Vico]

I had thought that Confirmation and Reception into the church were the same thing. This is more complicated than I had realized! Fortunately, I did go through RCIA and got the whole nine yards on the Easter Vigil, including first communion.

What blew my mind after becoming Catholic and attending Mass regularly was seeing these little kids toddle up and receive communion. ( ! ) Really, some of them looked incredibly young. How can they even know what they are receiving at that age? As somebody here was saying, there are suggestions that the age of first communion be moved till after the confirmation. I think that makes more sense.

When I was a Lutheran, we went through catechism in our junior high years and then got confirmed and received our first communion at the same time, when we were about 14 years old. I think it was assumed that by then, we would know what we were receiving and what the sacrament was all about.

The original sacramental order is Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion. In 1910 St. Pope Pius X moved the age of Communion earlier (from 10-14 to 7) but not of Confirmation. Presently there is an effort to restore the order of the sacraments of Christian Initiation in the Latin Church, that is, confirmation and first Eucharist when they reach the age of reason. A brief catechism on the “restored order” - Denver Catholic

There is a different sacramental discipline in the various Catholic sui iuris churches. For example in the Latin Catholic church the reception of Confirmation, Confession, and Holy Communion may be at the age of reason, about age seven – unless there is mental debility – the time when a person is usually deemed to be morally responsible and also subject to ecclesiastical laws. In the Eastern Catholic churches there are different practices. In the Byzantine Catholic Church Baptism, Chrismation, and Holy Communion are given together to infants – stressing the action of the Holy Spirit.

 

[dochawk]

Really, some of them looked incredibly young. How can they even know what they are receiving at that age?

This whole bit about waiting until they an toddle up on their own is “recent”.

Until the Western Church withheld the Cup for disciplinary reasons (flushing out heretics), infant Communion was the norm.

As infants were only given the Blood (not ready for solid food!), their Communion at the time of Baptism became simply impossible. The whole “age of reason” thing didn’t come about until centuries later.

In the East, we look at Western practice and it blows our minds that the graces of Chrismation (confirmation) and the Eucharist are withheld from these children . . .

hawk

 

[rrj75]

Sorry for the mistake. I understand what you are saying. Growing up Baptist, the expression I heard was always “take” Communion so that expression slipped out in my writing. I do know Communion has a very different meaning within the church so the distinction is important. The Baptist version of taking Communion is not on the same plane as a Catholic receiving Communion.

Also just to clarify for everyone, I know I am need of further instruction and I see that there is merit for having to wait for something like this. I don’t mean to come off as impatient in my questions or other comments. These were just some questions I had on my mind. Thanks everyone for answering and helping out!