Byzantine Catholics are confirmed and recieve communion when they Baptized because they are the sacraments of initiation, each progressivly opening up the life of grace and the Church to the faithful.  In fact, we (Byzantibe Catholics) view it as irregular (some say improper) for anyone to recieve communion who has not been confirmed. In a nod toward this tradition, Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix has restored the order/sequence of the sacraments - Baptism, confirmation,then Eucharist.  See www.diocesephoenix.org/youthministry/confirmationpolicy.html for his pastoral letter on same.

My son is turning 12 this year & will be getting confirmed next year.  We are going out of state to a different church (that our friend is rcia director of) to do that because otherwise, he would be confirmed in jr/sr year of high school here at our church.  I have never really understood that because I do think that pre-teens REALLY need the gifts & help that the sacrament of confirmation would give them by the time they hit the teenage years!!!  My sister-in-law married a byzantine guy & I do love the way they teach the children the Faith, while enabling them with all the grace of the Sacraments from infancy!

One reason given for LATE administration of the Sacrament of Confirmation is that a LARGE number of families STOP sending their children to CCD once they have received it.  The numbers of enrolled and attending students drop precipitously.  Then what you have is the current situation with the majority of “Catholics” that are ill-formed, or incompletely formed in the Faith.

Graces and gifts?  I recceived a “watered down” version of catechis myself in the 1970s, and was not fully formed until I went through classes to be a Catechist and learned, what I did not know that I did not know.

Would you have a teacher in the schools that had only an 4th grade, or 8th grade education? 

Could you as a parent be prepared for what you will face every single day with preparation and education ending before entering your teen years?

Yes, Confirmation is the “CARROT” that many hold out to teens to continue, to grow and to be more fully formed in their faith.  So that by the time of confirmation, they are READY for the adult practice of their faith in their daily lives.

As one who has recently witnessed a Confirmation Mass for 3rd graders, I have to say I have my qualms about this practice, not because it’s sacramentally problematic (the history of Confirmation has many affirmations of younger confirmations) but because it’s ethically a problem of use. To give 3rd graders the sacrament of Confirmation and then tell them certain things are expected of them, is too much for them, and really seeks to preserve the faith life and power of those who are in charge (my guess is this happens in more “traditional” dioceses.)
But as to your point in the actual post. Confirmation is a complicated sacrament because so many people have their own interpretation of it. Might seem too simple but one could say that this is an experience where God rains down love on the confirmands and helps them to see their gifts which come from God (which may or may not be in the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit which are pushed so heavily in so many confirmation settings.) Otherwise, one has to get into long discourses and disputes between the history of Confirmation, and I’m not well versed in that, and it’s a complicated matter. The question we have to ask is, “what does it mean to find God’s gifts?” We say students need these gifts, but if God is infinite, doesn’t that mean that anything can be a gift if used for God?

You outed me and my question to you :-)!  Thanks again, for all the ideas and I’ve already started adapting the Little Flowers Program with some of your suggestions (and help from others, including the posts here).  But, more importantly, your answer made me pause and pray without jumping to judgement because something is out of my experience and comfort zone (always good advice).

I would love to review your previous blog posts on the Sacrament of Confirmation, but it appears this blog was created early this year, and I cannot find any links to last fall/winter. Thanks and God bless!

I’m a mom, a catechist, and a DRE (purely on a volunteer basis—we have a small church) in a diocese that restored the order of the sacraments about 10 years ago or so.  I’ll have to say that I absolutely love that we confirm our children in the second grade now, so they can approach “the source and summit” (the Eucharist) as the apex of their initiation as Christians.  In a day and age in which 12-year-olds are doing drugs and having sex and the culture sexualizes even very little children with not only the fashions but the inuendo in movies and TV programs aimed at these young children, kids need the grace of this sacrament at a young age to help them. 

That being said, it is more difficult to teach this sacrament to young children not only because of their intellect isn’t mature (not that a teen’s is!), but also because there aren’t very many companie making resources to prepare such young children for the sacrament.  My only advice along those lines is just take what you have or can find and scale it back to a second-grader’s understanding.  And don’t give up the good programs and ideas you might already have been using for teens; just use these programs as part of your youth group’s activities and not as part of preparation for confirmation. 

I’ll have to admit that it is more difficult to get the kids to come to CCD after elementary school (they usually don’t stop coming right away after 2nd grade confirmation, but they oftentimes stop coming when they get busy with sports and extracurricular actiities in middle school and high school).  You don’t have the “carrot” of confirmation to hold out before them, to entice them to keep coming.  All I can say about that is that confirmation may not be the carrot we would have liked it to be anyway.  When the parents themselves are very poorly catechized, it’s hard for them to be motivated to make their kids go to CCD, whether or not confirmation is a “carrot” for them.  At leat if they are confirmed in 2nd grade, they have that grace for the rest of their life—something I can’t say for a lot of adults I know (includingmy own husband!) who have never been confirmed because they dropped out of CCD before confirmation and don’t want to be confirmed now as an adult because they think of it as a “kids’ thing.”

My mother was confirmed in 2nd grade, two weeks after her First Communion.  I was confirmed in 6th grade at age 10.  In fact, I vividly recall the bishop’s words that night.  He called us “Soldiers of Christ”.  To this day, I take those words seriously.  My daughter was confirmed in 12th grade!  It was such a struggle to keep up the attendance.

I am now in a Maronite Rite Catholic Church where I serve as Director for Religious Education.  Over the past few years, I have seen it all.  It is the tradition to baptize and confirm children at the same time.  Some of our parishioners are married to Orthodox christians who baptize, chrismate and administer communion on the same day.  And we also have RC children who were baptized, made First Communion but have not yet been confirmed.  It certainly keeps me on my toes :-)

P.S. - SORRY about all the typos in my post above! Yikes! The only thing I can say in my own defense is that I had already lost the post I was trying to compose once because the page automatically refreshed, and I wanted to send the re-composed post before I lost it again.  (I always feel that it’s kind of a “Russian roulette” trying to get something posted on an NCRegister blog before the page refreshes and I lose everything I was working on.)

I grew up in a more rural area where the Bishop was not able to come to every parish every year to confirm the children.  So I was confirmed a month after I made my First Communion.  For myself, I understood what was going on.  I’d been well-prepared, not only by the nuns who taught religion class on Saturday mornings to us public school children, but also, and especially, by my mother.  I will always believe that family is the most important part of religious training.  If a family teaches and reinforces the tenets of our faith, then it’s an ongoing education, and age of reception of sacraments is not the only criteria.

Everyone: It is good to remember that Confirmation was given before 1st Communion up to the time of Pius X.
Maybe one of the problems with todays children and church going is the lack of Sacramental Grace.  Come Holy Spirit!

Among the reasons given by Bishop Olmstead for restoring the sequence of baptism, confirmation, and eucharist, is that there are many instances of people not getting confirmed because their families moved around or other sorts of instability. Because they are already receiving the eucharist, there is not as much motivation to get back into CCD classes so that they can receive the sacrament. Also, confirmation in many parishes is seen as a kind of rite of passage into young adulthood and a completion of religious training, perhaps kind of like a bar or bat mitzvah, which completely distorts the meaning of the sacrament. The sacrament functions whether or not we understand it. Does a 12 year old really know its meaning better than a 7 year old?

I received Confirmation at age 12. I remember it vividly and was so thrilled to receive it.  My oldest six children received it as juniors in high school.  I was a DRE for five years during which the age was junior year of high school.  What a disaster.  So many students were in that rebellious mode and refused to be confirmed.  Even if they didn’t rebel, many only went through the motions with a bland attitude. The skeptical pagan culture had taken its toll before they had been equipped with the wonderful sacrament of Confirmation.  What a shame.  Our diocese returned to age 12 several years ago.  Thank heavens!!!  My last two children received it at that age and what a difference in their whole attitude.  I always believed that receiving it early made so much sense because it imparts so many graces, gifts, etc. that arm them to weather the storms of adolecence.  Third grade?  Why not? What a brilliant plan to arm our children in this post Christian culture of ours with all that they need to thrive spiritually.

I don’t have a confirmation analogy. But, here is one that may be helpful for children preparing for Reconcilition and Holy Communion.

Three Good and Humble Hosts invited children to a Feast. The only request that the Hosts had of their guests was to wear their dazzling white shirts. Now, the children only had one special shirt like this apiece, but these shirts had grown very dirty. There was no way they could participate in such a feast and not offend their Hosts.

The children decided to seek out a person who worked at a local cleaners and ask that person to help clean their shirts and make them dazzle once again. They found this person, and he asked that the children explain how their white shirts became so dirty. The children explained and the worker listened patiently. After the person working at the cleaners understood completely, he washed the special shirts first in the washer, and then placed them in the dryer.

The shirts came out dazzling white and warm and the children were overjoyed. The person working at the cleaners asked that the children do their best to keep their shirts clean from that point forward. The Owner of the cleaners (who happened to be one of the Hosts) was out of sight of the children and also felt moved to help the children. In doing this, He instructed the worker to give the children special napkins to help prevent dirt from getting on their shirts in the future. He also instructed the worker to tell the children they were welcome back any time.

The children later attended the feast and the Three Hosts were very happy to see them, and encouraged them to eat and drink. After the feast was over and the children went back to their daily lives, they worked as hard as they could to keep their shirts clean by using the special napkins given to them by the Owner of the cleaners.

It was inevitable that the children got their shirts dirty again, because they didn’t always use the napkins. But they knew they would always be warmly received at the cleaners and receive a new pair of napkins. Gradually, the children became better at keeping dirt off their shirts and stretching the life of the napkins.

The shirts represent our souls.
Dirt on the shirts represents sin.
The Owner of the cleaners is God.
The cleaners represent God’s Church.
All of us are God’s children.
The Hosts of the Feast are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Feast is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist.
The worker at the cleaners represents the Priest.
The washer and dryer represent absolution and the Miracle of God’s Mercy and Forgiveness (provided by Jesus).
The Napkins represent Grace and Prayer.
Eating and drinking represent receiving Holy Communion.

Possibly it would be a good idea to give all God’s Gifts at Baptism and strengthen the child immediately.  The three different Sacraments could be explained more fully each year.  It seems that many children and parents just consider Confirmation as graduation from religious training and never return.

As a DRE in a diocese that has been confirming kids in 2nd grade for the past decade or so, I can tell you that (at least in my experience), kids don’t drop out of CCD right after confirmation when they are confirmed as young as 2nd grade.  (That used to happen more when we confirmed kids in junior high or high school.)  Of course, they oftentimes do drop out of CCD when they get to junior high or high school (depending on their sports scheduals as well as the attitudes of their parents), but at least if they were confirmed in 2nd grade, they already have the grace of the sacrament working in them and they are more likely to come back to the church eventually than kids who dropped out of CCD before they could be confirmed as high-schoolers.  (That last part is pure speculation on my part, btw; have no direct evidence.)

smoke some more with your 420 followers

Ah, I see the “Shining One” has posted here! Be careful, Lucifer! Many of us have tried pot! How long has it been since you tried Truth?