Monday, 15 October 2012
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Should My Children Take Communion?
By Kitty
My three children are baptized Catholics, but my husband and I are not.
The eldest child is eight years old. We are attending mass tomorrow.
Is it right for the children to take communion or do they have to complete other sacraments before they take part?
If you have knowledge of Catholicism, can you answer this parent's question? What are the sacraments of Catholicism, and who is allowed to participate in them?
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Comments (29)
I am not catholic but I know that at a certain age they attend their first communion, and its a big deal. So I would err on the side of caution and say no, you need to follow the "rules" of catholicism in order for your daughter to be able to receive communion.
Talk to your priest. I was raised Byzantine Catholic which has slightly different rules than the normal Roman Catholic sacraments (We're baptized, confirmed, and given First Communion all at the same time). I think it'd be best to talk to the priest of your church about what they need to do in order to receive communion, because it is important that they understand what they are undertaking.
Catholics must go through religious education classes before they can receive Communion. And before they go to Communion they must go to Confession.
Classes begin in the Fall to prepare aspirants for Communion at Easter time.
The sacraments instituted by Christ are:
1. Baptism
2. Confession (aka Reconciliation)
3. Eucharist (Communion)
4. Confirmation
5. Matrimony
6. Holy Orders
7. Anointing of the sick.
I would talk to the priest before hand. Where I am from, 8 is about the right age when they would start to learn about communion.We would teach 2nd grade CCD. I used to teach this class. And the way we taught it was that in the fall they made their first Reconcilation/Confession. Then in the Spring they made their First Holy Communion.
To me the biggest thing is before your children can receive, they MUST understand that it is not bread and wine, but that it IS the Body and Blood of Christ. As Catholics, we do not believe that it is just a symbol, but it is truely the Body and Blood. When they receive the communion wafer, they are literally holding Jesus in the palm of there hand. I cannot express to you that feeling of joy/excitement/whatever its called when you reallize that that piece of bread is no longer bread but is litteraly Jesus. It is truely an amazing feeling.
They must also be free of any mortal sin. A mortal sin has 3 conditions:
1. One must know what they are doing is wrong.
2. One must choose to stll commit said action.
3. It must be grave in action
Granted at their age, they most likely havent done anything too serious. but it is still good to start them at a young age.
They also need to be going to Mass every weekend and the Holy Days of Obligation. I have always been taught that it is a mortal sin to miss mass on the weekend.
May God Bless you and your family!
No, they're not supposed to according to Roman Catholic rules. They need to go through a bunch of preparation for their First Communion so they understand what it means. Being baptized is not enough. And like the commenter above me says, even once they've gone through the sacrament they are not supposed to take it if they've committed a moral sin and have not properly confessed it yet.
Please do talk to your priest; your children, being baptized Catholic already, are ready to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist! However, this is usually done when the child is around eight years old and has received some preparation, usually during Sunday school.
So should your oldest child, or any of your children, participate in communion at Mass? Not yet! Your eldest child is ready to begin instruction and, hopefully, in late April and May can have their First Communion! Your other children have a few years yet.
Good question, though! And thank you so much for honoring the baptism of your children and bringing them to Mass!
Please feel free to message me if you have further questions; I'm not a priest yet (five more years to go) but I can probably be of some help.
-Jacob
What are the sacraments of Catholicism, and who is allowed to participate in them?
As @PrisonerxOfxLove@xanga has already shared, there are Seven Sacraments instituted by Christ and entrusted to the ministry of His Church. The Sacrament of Baptism is open to all people from infancy to just prior to death and everyone in between and, in an extreme circumstance, can literally be ministered by anyone but is primarily ministered by a priest or deacon. The other six Sacraments are open only to those who have received Baptism and are in full communion with the Catholic Church; baptism is the entry into the sacramental life of the Church since it is by this Sacrament that you become a member of the Body of Christ.
However, someone who is not Catholic but is a baptized Christian (so long as it was with water and in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) may be received into full communion through the Sacrament of Confirmation after undergoing RCIA (a time of education and preparation). Once they have been received into the Church in this way they are able to receive First Communion (usually in the same Mass they received Confirmation) and may receive any of the other Sacraments according to need, vocation, etc.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - I love priests. They celebrate Eucharist, listen to confessions and they are the walking, talking Magisterium.
Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that the sacraments are necessary for the salvation of a man's soul.
Priests = sacraments.
May God bless you.
@PrisonerxOfxLove@xanga - Please pray for us "baby priests," too! It's a long and difficult journey (especially for us Jesuits as the whole process takes about 11 years on average) but HE is totally worth it, and so are His people (including you!). Thank you for your love; every time I put on my collar to head over to the high school to teach, to the parish to help with Confirmation or anything else, I pray, "Lord, thank you for my vocation; thank you for this collar and the Cross it represents. I beg you for every grace I need to live this with all the dignity, honor and love that you and your people deserve from me." So please keep me in your prayers; I only want to serve Christ as His priest one day, but I can't do it without a lot of help!
Ah, I read this with my answer prepared but between @Ancient_Scribe and @PrisonerxOfxLove I've really nothing to say! Haha. I wish you the best of luck and pray that you will truly listen to the answers here. =) And it's wonderful that you are taking your children to Mass although you and your husband are not Catholic. That speaks beautifully of your family!
I am a Catholic and was raised by a very religious mother. We were never allowed to have communion until later in life. I never thought about it much when I was a child or if I did, I don't remember it at least.
My own Father brought me up to go to the church as quickly as I could. I remember going through 'training' downstairs when I was very young where the little ones including myself learned how to take communion and get a small sip of wine without spilling it.
I never had any ill effects from it. If you want to bring your children up Christian I recommend you do it as soon as possible so it is the strongest influence in their lives. I have different views today, but I still do respect the Christian ways and it's a good path for any person to take if they choose to follow the discipline and ways of religion. Φ ≡
I am not catholic, so I can't say much about communion. But as a whole, from a Biblical view, I don't see why not. If the child is old enough to have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, the child should be allowed to partake of any of the ordinances of faith.
As a Catholic, you must participate in the sacraments of baptism, reconciliation, then first communion before you can take communion weekly.
"My three children are baptized Catholics, but my husband and I are not. "
I've come across some weird stuff in religion but this is ... weird. You don't believe in Catholicism enough yourselves to join the club officially, but you're happy for your children to be involuntarily inducted.
Your children are going through the rites of passage yet you haven't? What am I missing here? Kids, you have to do this, but we don't? Something is unsettling about this, and it may very well come up in their later years. My personal belief is that the child should be old enough and feel strongly enough about it to make the decision, which, by the way is not the practice in my church.
So...you baptized your children into a religion you know nothing about?
Also, at least within my local diocese, at least one parent has to be baptized catholic in order for a child to be baptized. How did you get around that?
No your children can not have communion yet. Nobody is allowed to take communion without completing a program of study first through the church. For kids, this usually takes place the year they turn 8 years old, never younger. In Catholic schools they usually do it as a class in second grade. Some churches also require the kids do their first confession (reconciliation) before their first communion and this is completed as part of the course of study (the requirements were different when I was a kid, first communion was at 8 years old and reconciliation was at 10. Your parish should let you know their requirements). At the end of the course (which takes place about once a week over a few months) they usually have a special mass scheduled for those receiving their first communion and it's a pretty big deal. Girls get dressed up in white dresses and boys in suits.
Find out from your priest. I hope he says it is ok.
Even as a Catholic, the thing I don't like about communion is in a religion that accepts everyone no matter who they are or what they do, it segregates people and makes Catholics look superior from Non-Catholics, making the idea of a Universal Church contradictory.
Its fine if you actually believe and you want to brainwash you children in to believing that by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a JEWISH ZOMBIE that they are going to live forever!! LOL
It sounds to me like child abuse! But then --- catholiholics do not seen to think child abuse is any big deal.
@dw817@xanga - No ill affects from the wine eh? It is against the law to give underage minors - especially small children any alcohol at ALL. There is a scientific reason for that - it DAMAGES their BRAINS!!!!!!
So how do explain believing that eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a Jewish Zombie is going allow oyu to live forever if you are not somehow brain damaged?@Chibi_Son_Gokou@xanga - Asking those not in communion with the Catholic Church to refrain from receiving Communion (how can you *take* communion if you are not *in* communion?) is not trying to say that Catholics are in any way superior, but rather asks people to be honest, to" worship in spirit and truth" as Jesus says in John 4:24. The Eucharist is not only symbolic of the communion of the Body of Christ but actually *makes* us the Body of Christ; as in a real body, there is no such thing as a "partial" communion between members. If there is a break in communion between my heart and my brain, for example, this is not a good thing and to pretend there is nothing the matter is not good, either.
When a Catholic receives the Eucharist and says "amen" they are making a public profession of faith that indeed this "bread" and "wine" is neither but is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. They are also professing that, yes, the priest has the authority to minister this Sacrament, that the bishop who ordained him had the authority to do so, and the Pope had the authority to authorize that bishop's consecration and entrust the diocese to him, and so on. That "amen," while seemingly small to many, is a public confession of the Catholic faith; therefore if one is not Catholic yet they receive the Eucharist--whether or not their "amen" is verbal--in all outward appearances they are making a public profession of a faith they do not accept; they are lying. This is not to say every Catholic going up to receive the Eucharist is doing a perfect job, but since they are presumed to be in full communion with the Church, they have the right to receive the Sacrament. But if the Church were to say, "Sure, anyone can come up for communion, Catholic or not," is that really the most loving thing to do, to let people come and receive the Body and Blood of Jesus all within the context of a lie? I can't help but recall St. Paul's warning in 1 Cor. 11:27-29.
In short, the Church practices closed communion to help everyone to remain truthful before Jesus Christ and to help souls to heed the teaching of St. Paul.
Feel free to reply/message me if you have further questions.
-Jacob(not a priest yet)
@Captric@xanga - First off, you're talking to an agnostic, so the term goes, don't preach to the choir. *Grin* 2ndly, I'm pretty sure it was grape juice until we were old enough. I do remember spilling it a few times on the floor and there were paper towels nearby until we could take communion correctly.
And I most definitely have different views than Christianity today as you can see HERE.
And don't give all the credit to Christians for their beliefs, there were many other religions before theirs, and they got their ideas from those including the one human messiah born from a virgin and the one great God: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion
But I also know most (not all) Christians are good people today and try to help each other, believers or not, and there's nothing wrong with leaning some ways and rules that teach mankind not to lie, not to cheat, not to steal, and not to murder.
Don't you agree, Captric ?
@dw817@xanga - Certainly I agree......but would you not agree that you do not need a religious based education to discover that it is not good to lie, cheat, steal and murder? In fact many religions - including christianity - you can find and if you choose to - USE - passages written in the unerring word of god to justify ALL of those things.
If they are Saved, Born Again Christians, that have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and believe the Bible then yes. If not then no.