ADMISSION TO COMMUNION

It has been the custom of the church to associate the reception of Holy Communion with Confirmation. Yet perhaps more properly we should asso~ate Communion with Baptism. Historical studies suggest that the separation of Baptism and Confirmation may have been a creation of the circumstances pertaining to the time of Emperor Constantine, when the influx of Christian converts exceeded the Church's capacity to baptise. And so Priests were vested with authority to baptise until the Bishop could Confirm. Thus, baptism and confirmation took on their chronologically different identities. Notwithstanding, Baptism is that Sacrament which cleaves the baptised unto the Body of Christ. Holy Communion is that Sacrament wherein we continually remember and receive that intimate relationship. Baptism and Holy Communion properly belong together. Subsequently where the parents of a baptised child wish that child to receive Holy Communion and where it is obvious that the child has some sense of the Holy moment, so this parish (acting with Diocesan authority) gladly prepares the baptised to receive communion prior to confirmation.