My 2nd grade daughter (8 years old) is attending CCD in preparation for her first penance and First Communion this spring. She was Baptised as an infant and we have been practicing Catholics her entire life. I was told yesterday by another mother at church that her daughter who is 7 years old, not Baptised and recently began attending church 6 months ago will receive her Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation at the same time this spring. Our children are in the same CCD preparation class at church. Why is it that her daughter is receiving Confirmation? She thought that it was strange as well and asked the Deacon as well as the teacher and they both said that, yes, her daughter will be Confirmed. I would love for my daughter to be confirmed at an earlier age as hers so what’s the deal?
the second child, the unbaptized one, is in RCIA so the norms for the rites will be followed. After suitable preparation beginning once the child has reached the age of reason, usually age 7, she will indeed receive baptism, confirmation and first communion at the same celebration, the Easter Vigil. She will be instructed for and make first confession some time after this.
The age for Confirmation for baptized children and youth in the Latin Rite is the age of discretion (age 7) or any time afterward, at the age set by the bishop, who guages the pastoral needs of his diocese.
There are a dozen threads here arguing the age of confirmation. yeah, yeah the Eastern Church baptizes and chrismates (confirms) infants and even confers first reception of the Eucharist. The reason for the differences has more to do with the role of the priests and bishops in each tradition than it does with the theology of the sacraments.
rule for parents of children in sacramental preparation is the same as for parents with toddlers playing in the same sandbox: never compare your child’s progress with that of another, they each are coming from different places, growing at different rates, and hitting milestones at different times, appropriate for their own situations.
In my own state the age varies from diocese to diocese from 7 all the way to 18. Go figure. If you know how bishops think you know more than I do.
The 7 year old is not in RCIA, she is actually in my daughter’s 2nd grade CCD religious ed. class at church. She has had no previous religion class or church attendance prior to August. I’m still confused.
some parishes do group children of like age together for the CCD class, and separate them for the actual immediate preparation for the rites and sacraments according to their needs. but we (the DREs) are still bound by canon law and the particular law of our diocese as to the age at which the child in each circumstance celebrates which sacrament, so try not to blame us.
We don’t know the pastoral decisions that have been made regarding the unbaptized child in this story, so we cannot criticize, but I can tell you, for instance, in this diocese particular law was promulgated in 2006 that raises the age for first communion to 3rd grade, following a 3 year preparation, but the document was silent on RCIA-the children’s catechumenate, so actual practice in the diocese is all over the map, no uniformity at all. The catechumenate so the RCIA rite prescribes is supposed to be not less than one calendar year, from Lent to the following Easter, and there is a mandated period of mystagogy, minimum 50 days, should be a year, after the Easter sacraments. In my experience fewer than 10% of these children return for any formal instruction after Easter.
The prevailing thinking of DREs and pastors here seems to be in favor of moving the older children toward baptism as soon as possible so they are not lost altogether. Whether that is pastorally or theologically correct is beyond my competence.
