From IHM School

Little Book of Instructions for Christian Mothers [continued]
(from Mother Love – A Manual for Christian Mothers – by Rev. Pius Franciscus, O.M.Cap., 1926)

On the Christian Training of Children

Chapter XIV – How a Christian Mother Should Assist Her Children to Prepare for Holy Communion.

The next great event in the young life of your child is its first Holy Communion. Until comparatively recent times it was the common practice of pastor and people to postpone this event to a time when the child was considered to be of a clearer understanding, and thus it would happen that children of thirteen and fourteen years had not yet received their first Holy Communion and many had not even made their first confession. Generally a child was not admitted to Holy Communion until it had reached the age of twelve years or had graduated from the parish school. This practice was introduced because it was deemed unwise and even wrong to allow children of a more tender age to approach the Table of the Lord, as they were considered too thoughtless for so holy an action.

But this practice was not at all in accord with the law of the Church, which had been promulgated by the Fourth Lateran Council in the year 1215, and which reads as follows: “All the faithful of both sexes, after coming to the use of reason, shall confess their sins alone to their own priest, at least once a year and devoutly receive Holy Communion at least at Easter time, unless upon the advice of their own priest and for some reasonable cause it should be deemed wise to abstain for a while.” This law was not only approved and confirmed by the Holy Council of Tent, about three hundred years after, but this Council even pronounced anathema on those who hold a contrary opinion: “If any one shall deny that all the faithful of both sexes, who have attained the use of reason, are obliged to receive Communion every year, at least at Easter time, according to the precepts of Holy Mother Church, let him be anathema.”

Therefore, Pope Pius X of happy memory, who deeply deplored the above mentioned custom which deprived children of Holy Communion, though they had attained the age of reason, once more promulgated the old law of the Church and condemned all contrary opinions. Then he also declared at what age a child should be considered as having attained sufficient use of reason for Holy Communion in the following words: “The age of discretion required for Holy Communion is that at which the child can distinguish the Eucharistic bread from common and material bread, and knows how to approach the altar with devotion.” Finally he approved and commanded to be observed throughout the world the following rules:

1) The age of discretion required both for confession and Communion is the time when the child begins to reason, that is about the seventh year, sometimes after, sometimes even before. From this time on the obligation of satisfying the precepts of both Confession and Communion begins.

2)    Both for First Confession and First Communion a complete knowledge of Christian Doctrine is not necessary. The child will, however, be obliged to gradually learn the whole catechism according to its intellectual ability.

3) The knowledge of Christian Doctrine required in children in order to be properly prepared for First Communion is that they understand according to their capacity those mysteries of Faith which are necessary as a means of salvation, that they be able to distinguish the Eucharist from common and material bread, and also approach the Sacred Table with the devotion suitable to their age.

4) The obligation of the precepts of Confession and Communion which rests upon the child, falls back principally upon those in whose care they are, that is, parents, confessors, teachers and their pastor. According to the Roman Catechism, however, it belongs to the father or to the person taking his place, as also to the confessor, to admit the child to First Holy Communion.

5) The pastors shall take care to announce and distribute General Communion once or several times a year to the children, and on these occasions they shall admit not only First Communicants but also others who with the consent of their parents or their confessors, have already been admitted to the Sacred Table before. For both classes several days of instruction and preparation shall precede.

6) Those who have the care of children should use all diligence so that after First Communion the children shall often approach the Holy Table, even daily, if possible, as Jesus Christ and Mother Church desire, and that they do it with a devotion becoming their age. They should bear in mind their most important duty which obliges them to have the children present at the public instructions in catechism, otherwise they must supply this religious instruction in some other way.

7) The custom of not admitting children to confession, or of not absolving them when they have attained the age of reason, is absolutely condemned. Wherefore the Ordinaries, using those means which the law gives them, shall see that it is done away with.

8) It is an utterly detestable abuse not to administer Viaticum and Extreme Unction to åof infants. The Ordinaries shall proceed severely against those who do not abandon this custom.

The foregoing are the instructions of the Holy Father, the representative of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in His name repeats in other words the rebuke of Christ to His apostles: “Let little children come to Me, and forbid them not.” We all have been too stingy in allowing children to get closer to the love of Christ and in union with Him; and it surely was the spirit of Christ that urged the Pope to be the champion o f the little ones. God be praised!

Now, dear Christian mother, after your duty has been so clearly defined by the Father of Christendom, can you hold back in lending your aid to lead that innocent boy or girl of yours nearer to Christ through Holy Communion? Oh, let it not be said, that you are less anxious to have your children in the arms and in the heart of Jesus, than those Jewish mothers of yore, who brought their children to Jesus for His blessing!

Yes, Christian Mother bringing your children nearer, closer to Jesus—this must be the object of all your efforts in promoting their proper education. These efforts must begin early in life. But with the dawn of reason they must be directed towards arousing in your child a deep appreciation of Christ’s love for all of us and, indeed, for each one of us in particular. As has been remarked before, this does not mean that a long elaborate narration of all that Christ did for us is to be told the little one, but it means that, whenever an occasion presents itself, you should use it to give the child a short explanation.

A few examples will indicate to you what I mean. For instance, you are taking your child out for a little walk in the fresh air. (I presuppose here that your child is about four or five years old, and is an average child.) On your walk you pass a church. Like every good Catholic you ought to stop in and pay your respects to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and, certainly, you will take your child along. After you have made a devout genuflection and have taken Holy Water and made the Sign of the Cross, which you have your child do also, you will kneel down and make a brief act of faith and adoration of our Blessed Lord in the tabernacle. Then it might be well to lead your child up to the Communion railing and call its attention to the Sanctuary Lamp and explain briefly the meaning of it, that it burns day and night to show the constant presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle. Point to the tabernacle door and tell the child that Jesus is locked in behind that door, because He loves us and wants to be with us always. This might be enough for one time. At some other time you might tell the child that Jesus is there in the tabernacle just as He was here on earth when He lived among the Jewish people in the Holy Land. Again you may tell it how we cannot see Jesus there because He hides Himself under the cover of bread, because we might be afraid of him if He were there with all of His Greatness and Power. Never keep the child in church too long, so that it does not become weary.

In these and similar ways the child should be taught to love the Prisoner of the Tabernacle, so that by the time it starts to school, it may be acquainted with the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist, and may more intelligently follow the instructions on this subject by the priest. Parents that seldom or never direct their children’s attention to this mystery as well as other mysteries of our Holy Faith, need not be surprised if the priest sometimes finds it necessary to postpone the First Communion to a later age than the accepted age of seven years, when every child should have so much understanding as to distinguish good from bad, and the Eucharistic bread from common bread.

But mother should not only be interested in this remote preparation for the child’s First Holy Communion, she must also interest herself in the proximate preparation. As soon as she hears that her boy or girl is one of the privileged First Communicants, she should aid the priest by every means in her power. In the first place, she should add a special prayer to the child’s regular morning and evening prayer to obtain from the Divine Goodness the grace that the child may make a worthy and devout First Communion. An Our Father and a Hail Mary will serve as well as any other prayer, if only each time the Our Father and Hail Mary is preceded by the words “for the grace of a good communion” or some similar words. The following prayer may be recommended for its simplicity:

Prayer for the Grace of a Worthy Communion

O my dearest Jesus, soon I shall be allowed to receive You into my heart. You, O Jesus, Who are my God, my Lord, my Redeemer and Savior. I am glad, because I love You and want You always. But, dear Jesus, my heart is so small and so poor, that it makes me afraid to take in so great a Lord. I wish I could make it as rich and as great as heaven, then, I know, it would be worthy. I cannot make it so worthy. Still, I need You, Jesus, and You want me; otherwise You would not have said: Let the little children come to me, and forbid them not. Therefore I come to open my heart, so that You can live in it forever. Oh, keep it clean and pure and make it rich with Your heavenly Grace, and it will always be a worthy dwelling-place, until at last You will take it with You into Your own happy home in heaven. Help me to be good and to keep me from every sin, even a little one.

O Blessed Mary, Mother of Jesus and my Mother, dear Guardian Angel, Protect and help me. Amen. Hail Mary.

Besides such daily prayer, mother should also drill her child in those fundamental truths which all must know to save their souls These are six, namely,

1)    There is only one God.

2)    In God there are three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

3)    God created all things, and rules and governs them.

4)    The Son of God became man and died on the Cross to save us.

5)    God rewards the good and punishes the wicked.

6)    The human soul will never die, and grace is necessary to be saved.

Then help to get a clear idea into the mind of your child about the Holy Eucharist. This is not so hard, if you will tell the child again and again the story of the Last Supper, and show from Christ’s many miracles how nothing is impossible to the power of God. Tell those miracles also in a child-like way and in deep faith, and the child will soon grasp that under the appearances of bread and wine the body and blood of Jesus Christ does exist in the Holy Eucharist.

As the day of its Holy Communion approaches, mother will do well also to speak of the First Holy Communions of the Saints and of other good, great men, and how they considered no day of their lives happier than the day on which they were privileged to receive into their souls for the first time the Lord of Heaven and Earth. Who will describe the joys of a mother’s and a father’s heart, when their little one in all its innocence and purity of the baptismal graces goes forward to the altar-steps to receive? Many a good father and mother have shed tears of joy and happiness on such an occasion, and surely they experienced at those moments a foretaste of the heavenly reunion in Christ in the next world. Indeed, in comparison to this happiness of having their innocent children united with their Divine Savior in the Holy Eucharist all other earthly joys must seem to them like so much dross and vanity. A warm, sincere faith in the mysteries of our holy religion, united with a supreme confidence in their fulfillment on occasions like the first Confession and the First Communion of their own child, will surely make life’s burdens and trials seem lighter and easier to bear.

After its first Holy Communion mother should frequently recall to the child’s memory the extraordinary grace which it received and strive also to urge it on to keep itself worthy of enjoying the same great happiness even every day. If parents and children would become more devoutly familiar with the Holy Eucharist through frequent and even daily Communion, there can be no doubt that ultimately the peace of Christ would reign in their homes and only rarely would the devil of discord and jealousy and hate gain an entrance there. The Holy Eucharist is the center of life in the Church, and the Holy Eucharist must also become the center of life in every Catholic home, if the principles of Christ are to bring forth there worthy fruits of virtue and perfection.