The Age of First Communion, Questioning, and the Mouths of Babes

We commune children at Redeemer. Some people don’t like that. They think that children aren’t intellectually or spiritually capable of examining themselves before puberty. They think somewhere around the end of 8th grade is the best time the right time for first communion, a time that happens to be precisely the moment when most world cultures have some rite of passage to indicate that children are no longer children.

Some of these critics have explained to me the glory days. In those days, I am told, confirmation really meant something. It wasn’t the sort of thing that a 6 year old could master and recite the way that they do the Catechism. That being said, these critics themselves never seem to be able to recite the Catechism, even though the children are doing it, nor do they ever seem to know more than a few Bible passages by heart and maybe the 23rd Psalm.

I simply tell that however rigorous and demanding their instruction was, it doesn’t seem to have been very effective. After all, they learned other things in those years, like the long division and the capitals of the States, that they still remember, but they don’t remember much from Confirmation instruction except that it was a great feat and serious.

For my part, I have no desire for the children to remember the rigors of their instruction or how stern and demanding I was, or how much memory work they had. I just want them to remember the actual memory work beyond the day after Questioning and I want them to receive the benefits that Christ has promised to His children for their faith in the Holy Communion.

To that end, we held questioning about a week ago at Redeemer. One of the confirmands, who had already been admitted to the Altar in the rite of First Communion, has downs syndrome. Strangely, none of the critics of early communion ever seem to think that a down syndrome child should have the holy communion withheld from him when he reaches the appropriate age, that is, around the end of 8th grade, even though he might only have the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual maturity and capacity of a 6-year old. In any case, this young man stood with his brothers and sister as they recited the entire catechism, word-for-word, even though he never uttered a syllable until the very end when I asked him who, it is that we worship, since his answer to most every question in this context is “God.” This time he simply said: “Me. Tom Brady” as he pantomimed throwing a football.

But before that endearing response, while the other children recited, he stood statue-like and was silent, except for when I asked them what the Words of Institution were. Then, while the recited the words, without any coaching and by complete surprise, he pantomined the ceremony of the celebrant right in time with the words. When the children said “took bread” he moved his hands from the prayer position to point to a couple of places before him. When they said “this is My Body” he made the sign of the cross over those spaces. After they said “in remembrance of me” he pretended to elevate the host. Then when they said “too the cup” he again pointed to a couple of places and made the sign of the cross over them at the words “in My Blood,” and again elevated an imaginary chalice after “in remembrance of me” before he made the sign of the cross over us all.

Does that mean he can examine himself? Of course it does. What else could it mean?