In the early church, the three sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Chrismation, and Eucharist) were always given in that order and, ideally, together in one service, regardless of age. This is how we do it at my parish today (
steliasmelkite.org). A good example of this in the West is their Easter Vigil service where they always Initiate together and in the proper order and in the midst of the Eucharistic service. Now imagine a whole family of pagans coming in, father, mother, and five kids ranging from 10 down to babe in arms, at that same Vigil and the priest initiating all of them together, not just those of a certain age, yes even the baby, and then you would have a good visual of how this worked in the early church. The Catechism does a nice job on this (see CCC 1285)
As the church began to spread rapidly and bishops/apostles were not always present every time someone was baptized (example Acts 8), there began to be an unfortunate and unintentional occasional temporal separation between Baptism and Chrismation (1290). Now, you have to remember, that Chrismation was and still is understood to be the final part of the Baptismal service (1298), so as a result, even if the person was an adult, they wouldn’t be allowed to receive Eucharist until they had been Chrismated. In fact, not until just this past century had it ever been heard of that a Christian would be allowed to receive Eucharist without being Chrismated (Read these paragraphs very carefully, look at the wording and order 1290, 1291, 1298, 1306, 1307, 1308, 1314, 1322). You can thank the French bishops of the 20th century for the modern anomaly.
The problem of the lack of the presence of a bishop at every baptism was solved in the east with the creation of the order of Presbyter, who could stand in for the bishop and administer the sacraments. In the East it became common practice for the Presbyter (priest) to administer Chrismation immediately after Baptism so as to maintain the connection between these two sacraments and so that there would not be any unnecessary delay in the reception of Eucharist. In the West, while this has been allowed in emergencies or special situations, the practice became to delay Chrismation until the bishop arrived on his next visit. This was to attempt to keep the idea in the minds of the people that Baptism, including it’s concluding rite (Chrismation) comes from the bishop who is the source of the sacraments in a diocese. Unfortunately, this also had the unintentional effect of stalling the reception of communion. This could be a problem where a bishop may not pass through for many years. When the bishop did arrive, he would Chrismate all who had been baptized since his last visit, including babies, and then all, including babies would receive Eucharist. But, for better or worse, this is the practice we see for the first 1000 years.
In the East, we still maintain the practice of the East as described above. In the West, however, things began to change in the middle-ages. When the priest began to leave the chalice at the altar and only bring the people the body of Jesus, the babies who had been baptized and chrismated were prevented from receiving. They had in essence been excommunicated! Remember a baby can’t chew very well and so the practice from the earliest days was to just give the babies a drop of the blood from a little spoon or the priest’s finger. Now there began a separation between Chrismation and reception of Eucharist and here is the first beginning of the erroneous idea that you have to be of a certain age to receive. From this comes the idea of intellectual awareness and all that nonsense, something that was never considered when initiating someone into the church.
Also during this period, in the West, Catholics began to receive less and less, to the point where eventually it was common for someone to receive communion only a few times in a life time, usually at least after being Chrismated and then again just before death. This also the practical reason behind the development of the idea of Spiritual communion and the paraliturgical practice of exposition and benediction after mass. The majority of the faithful on a typical Sunday did not receive and so this was the liturgical supplement. Today the odd practice exists where now most area again receiving but still their will be exposition and benediction, a sort of liturgical redundancy.
As a result of the common abstinence from reception during this time, the Church declared that all who were of the age of reason, due to culpability, but receive communion at the very least once a year. This is where the idea of the Easter obligation comes from. Now all those who were culpable for sin, that is, of the age of reason, were obligated to abide by this law. Anyone who was not yet of the age of reason could not be held culpable for not abiding by the law for obvious reasons. Here is where the whole popular idea of the age of reason thing really takes off in the West. This is why, when Trent weighs in on Chrismation, something debated by the reformers, it says that it is not necessary for one to receive it until the age of reason has been attained. It was not relegating it to a status less than water baptism, it was simply commenting on the situation in the historical context regarding the Easter obligation.
The next logical question then is what is the age of reason? When is it necessary to chrismate a child so that he can receive communion to abide by the Easter obligation. Well, in some places in the West that was considered as early as two, some as late as twelve, it varied from diocese to diocese. The Catechism of the council of Trent then gave the age of seven as a middle ground and that is why today, seven is still thought of as the time when someone should receive first communion.
If you want to read more on this I recommend
Charles Davis,
Sacrament of Initiation.
