The Archdiocese of Liverpool has announced plans to change the order
in which young people receive the sacraments of Christian Initiation,
placing Confirmation before First Communion.
Beginning in the fall of 2012, children above the age of 8 will be
invited to receive Confirmation and First Communion between the feasts
of the Ascension and Corpus Christi.
They will be encouraged to make
their first Confessions later in the year, during Advent, Catholic
Culture reports.
“In recent years in the Archdiocese of Liverpool, most Catholics have
been baptised as babies, made their First Communion around age seven,
and been confirmed when teenagers,” the Archdiocese says in a statement
on its website.
“These three sacraments make up the process of belonging to the
Church (called Christian Initiation). The sacraments weren’t always in
that order, and adults preparing for initiation have always received
them in the original order: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist
(Communion),” the statement continues.
“From September 2012 in this Archdiocese, children who have been
baptised will follow that same order. Those aged eight by the first of
September 2012 will be invited to receive Confirmation and First
Communion in the days between Ascension Sunday and the Feast of the Body
and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) in 2013, and the same pattern will
be followed each year after that.
“At the same time the way children are prepared for these sacraments
will change. Instead of teachers, catechists and priests teaching
children and parents about the sacraments, they will help the parents to
hand on their own faith to their children, fulfilling the privileges
and responsibilities expressed in the Rite of Baptism. New resources
will help parents to prepare their own children for these sacraments
with the support of the local church community.
“These changes are meant to help us understand that sacraments are
gifts of God’s grace, that parents are the first teachers of their
children in the ways of faith, and that we are all called to get to know
Jesus better throughout our life’s journey,” the statement concludes.
SIC: CTH/ASIA