First Communion

A group of children in our Parish will be receiving their First Communion on Sunday. Please keep them in your prayers. I am sure this will be the case in many churches in the next few weeks and months - so let us pray...

Hopefully this means more Warriors of God... and not lukewarm, "open minded" spiritualists. We cannot allow our faith to be watered down any more.

In that line of thinking... this photo makes me happy every time I see it:

Confirmation: What is the proper age?

At our parish, we have a rather odd Catechism program the employs the "help and knowledge" of the entire parish. In actuality it is pretty much the parents of the kids who are required to be there, and a few other souls like my family, that choose to support our community, more so than the program.

The way that this program works is that we meet after Mass, share a meal, and then split up into "Age" groups and learn about the topic of the session. This year the parish has been going through the Sacraments. Today's topic was CONFIRMATION. During the "adult/teen" session, one of the priests explained some of the basics of the Sacrament, and then went into some variations and issues with the way our Diocese does Confirmation.

What we learned is that teens are not confirmed until they are 16 years old in the Archdiocese of Anchorage! Which is a change from where I come from, where teens are confirmed in 8th grade. As the priest ran through the permutations of different theories behind "When is the best time for Confirmation" a few parents started to Chime in. No real consensus was found, but because this decision is done by the Ordinary at the Archdiocesan level, there wasn't much hope for change in the conversation.

But it left me thinking about it. When is the right age for this Sacrament? I think 16 is certainly too old. By this time teens are in their "disinterested" stage of life. Not only that, but how many kids are really staying in Religious education classes if they aren't attending Catholic School? Not only that, but when you are 15-16, you have a ton going on in your life: high school, sports, learning to drive, starting to get ready to apply for college, boys/girls, and all sorts of other things. Plus, as our priest put it, it lends itself at that age to seem like "Catholic Graduation." In otherwords, here is a final Sacrament, have fun at College, see you when you get Married.

Now I know a lot of this is dependent on the formation and the strength of the parental involvement, but I am talking in broad strokes here. So if 16 is too old, what about 8th grade, around the 14 year old range? In Michigan, where I come from, that is the age for Confirmation, and it seems like this is a pretty common age. I think it isn't bad, but why don't we do 12?

I seem to think the 10-12 age range might be the best age for Confirmation. It allows you to really emphasize the fact that it is a Sacrament of initiation, and allows the kids to maintain their childlike acceptance of things, while you teach them such things as the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. It also allows for a Continuity in terms of their religious education, because they can stay in religious ed classes beyond 1st Communion, and yet isn't so far off to allow for a lapse in attendance, or interference with "teen age" type things. I remember when we were youth group leaders a few years back, and lead a retreat where sophomores and juniors told us that they had about 20-40 hours of extra-curricular or job hours that they spent each week OUTSIDE of actual school time. The younger... the better it seems.

So tell me what you think? I never went through this process so I am somewhat unfamiliar with it and don't know all the ins and outs in relation to determining a good age for COnfirmation. Not only that, most of the people I know that are Catholic went to Catholic High School, where their formation came in the form of school classes, and so the age of Confirmation was less important than those kids who had to take classes after school.

Baptism - UPDATE

I am VERY EXCITED! My wife and I just finalized plans for our daughters baptism. It will be in the usus antiquior!!!

Aside from my affinity for the usus antiquior in general, the decision was actually very intentional and prayerful. My wife and I discussed it at length, compared both the Modern Roman Rite and the Tridentine Rite, and decided based on more than just the "style" of the rites. In other words, the decision was more than just a substance vs. style, or style vs. style determination. In fact, my wife is more comfortable with the Modern Rite than the older rite, but she really appreciated the side by side comparison of the two forms of Baptism. 

I will update more as we get closer. I would like to have someone video it, but I think video taping religious events whether it be a Mass, Sacrament, or ritual, should be done with the same sort of reverence and preparation that one undertakes in terms of conducting the said event.

There are some questions lingering in my mind, which I may pose on here in regards to having such a public/family event in the older rite knowing that none of my family is very familiar with it.