Suffering With Joy

Confirmation for Young Children?

July 11, 2011

One God

We are now in the time after Pentecost, as each Sunday is now marked in the 1962 liturgical calendar.  When the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and Mary in the upper room that day, all sorts of great things began to happen as the Church blossomed under His wings.  This time after Pentecost is the time of the Holy Spirit, and the sacrament most closely connected to the Holy Spirit is Confirmation. Between now and the season of Advent when the liturgical year begins anew, we can profit by thinking about the action of the Holy Spirit in our souls and the importance of Confirmation.

I am happy to report that Bishop Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota, gave a speech July 6 at Mundelein Seminary in which he advocated reception of the sacrament of Confirmation by children before receiving First Holy Communion. The Eastern rites of the Catholic Church have always followed infant Baptism with Confirmation and the Holy Eucharist, conferring all at one time.  Today converts in the Latin rite receive all three sacraments at the Easter Vigil, so the practice is not totally foreign to us.

When I was born, the practice was to be baptized within two weeks of birth, receive First Holy Communion in first grade, and Confirmation in the second grade.  The children of my era knew full well what the sacrament meant, and we knew we were not too young to be “soldiers of Jesus Christ.”  The post-Vatican II practice of delaying the sacrament of Confirmation until the teen years is an anomaly in Church history and I believe has been detrimental to souls.

At Mundelein Bishop Aquila said:

One can speak of the many effects of confirmation and the impact it makes upon one’s life, but it is always important to remember that the divine person of the Holy Spirit is received in Confirmation. We need the gifts of the Holy Spirit, every day, every hour, every minute and every second to live a life that gives glory to the Father as Jesus glorified the Father.

Confirmation is not marked by a choice to believe or not believe in the Catholic faith. Rather as disciples we are chosen by God to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, to be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit generously bestowed by God, and we are called to cooperate with that grace.

In today’s world I believe it is especially important to restore the conferring of this sacrament to an earlier age, and even adopt the Eastern rite practice of Confirmation before Holy Communion as Bishop Aquila suggests.

We are surrounded in daily life by unbaptized, unconfirmed people.  It is our burden to bear the consequences of their spiritual darkness and to pray that they will find truth in Christ.  It is also our obligation by the way we live to co-operate with the graces the Holy Spirit gives us. In that way we counteract the darkness that envelopes us.

Giving children at a much earlier age the opportunity to conform to the gifts of the Spirit through the sacrament of Confirmation seems only just and right considering even only one aspect of today’s hedonistic culture: the sexualization of children.  Otherwise, we are sending them into battle with inferior strength.

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tags: Catholic Church, Confirmation, Liturgical calendar

7 Comments to Confirmation for Young Children?

1. 

   Barb,
   This is interesting. I’ve always wondered why the Church waits so late for this Sacrament – my nephew is being Confirmed this fall and he will be sixteen and a half. I think teenagers need this Sacrament earlier than this. The world is a tough enough place without sending the kids into battle without full armor.
mary on July 13th, 2011
2. 

   Yes, and when you think about it, depriving kids of saints names at Baptism so they have someone holy to emulate and look after them is another crime. I claim St. Clement of Rome on whose feast day I was born, and the Blessed Virgin because I was baptized December the 8th as my protectors in addition to St. Barbara. Then there’s the little known St. Alice (1204-1250) who managed to found the Canonesses of Our Lady and is the patroness of the blind and paralyzed. With all these greats around me, how can I dare lose heaven?
barb on July 15th, 2011
3. 

   I’ll be curious to see how being confirmed as a young child pans out across the teen years of Catechesis. For parents barely practicing the faith, Confirmation has been a carrot to keep them bringing the kids to Sunday School.
Christian on July 17th, 2011
4. 

   Which shows that the parents need to know their faith better and be committed to living it more. It’s appalling that Confirmation is used as a carrot. We needed no such thing in the 1950s and ’60s, but today Catholics have accommodated themselves to the zeitgeist to such an extent I wonder if many even know the meaning of “sacrament.”
barb on July 17th, 2011
5. 

   I was told that one reason the Church decided to delay confirmation until the teen years was in response to criticism that they were confirming kids who were too young to understand what they were doing. I had not heard that it may also be a “carrot” to sway some Catholic parents to keep their kids coming to church and/or Catholic schools. Sad…

   I was raised charismatic evangelical, and of course they don’t believe in baptizing infants, nor do they practice confirmation. And they will only baptize a person if they feel he or she has come to saving faith in Christ. But that includes baptizing children (I was baptized in a Baptist church at age 7), as long as they feel the child understands what he or she is doing. Why shouldn’t Catholics confirm children who have been catechized?

   Evan
Evan on July 18th, 2011
6. 

   I grew up post-Vatican II and didn’t receive the sacrament of Confirmation until 8th grade. That’s the way I thought it always been until a few years ago when I was living in Steubenville. I was shocked when they started inferring the Sacrament of Confirmation along with First Communion. I started reading up on it.

   As I thought about it, it is a good idea to confirm them young. They can use all the help they can get growing up in this crazy world!
Carol@simple_catholic on July 19th, 2011
7. 

   When I was in second grade we were thoroughly catechized in the meaning of the sacrament of Confirmation. We knew the Holy Ghost was going to dwell in us and that we received the seven gifts. We learned the meaning of those gifts and the fruits they bear. Post Vatican II a lot of theologians, bishops and priests had various agendas and the Confirmation age was moved to the mid to late teen years and made a badge of commitment, totally changing the meaning of the sacrament. We can commit and persevere in our faith because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Without it we much more easily fall away. I’m glad to see at least one bishop in this country re=thinking the situation.
barb on July 19th, 2011