> Daniel: To a point what you averr has some historical precedent but what
I am asking for is what happened
initially:Paedobaptism,Confirmation(Firmung)and immediate Holy
Communion. History clearly shows that by perhaps the 14th c. Holy
Communion was so infrequent as to be yearly-at best-for the majority of
the laity (and not a few of the monastics)and I think Confirmation as it
came eventually to be was the exception to the rule, as many people
never saw a Bishop in their whole lives esp. in northern Europe and much
of what is now the UK.
You will recall perhaps that the
normative minimal Latin discipline untill Vatican 2 (and I am
arbitrarily using Trent now as an initial starting point for
convenience)was one reception of the Blessed Sacrament every
ecclesiastical year(I do not include practices in the New World post
Council of Lima) and one had from Lent 1 untill Trinity Sunday so to do.
After the restoration/ realisation of an English liturgy (and again I
used 1549 as an arbitrary starting point) the English rule seems, at
least in law, to have been three times a year (Christmas-Epiphany,
Easter and Whitsunday) though again how often this was normative
practice in a uniform way is ot always entirely clear. I know that in
the later Stuart and early Hannover periods, Confirmation was very very
much the exception (I personally believe this affected some of the early
Wesleyan activity) with bishops stopping at crossroads and confirming
from their carriages-complete with mitre on the door!
I want none
of this. I do not want 'commissioning' ceremonies of any kind aside from
Holy Baptism and the vows of religious and of course Holy Orders. We do
not have to be constricted by the jurisdictional errors of past
centuries . Paedo-everything resolves that dilemma nicely and doubtless
would help us in dialogue with the Orthodox which should in any case be
pursued with intensity and vigor. One sip does not a summer make but we
should at least sit down at the same table. Blessings. GDVW+
message
dated 8/24/2003 9:58:41 AM Central Daylight Time,
> gdvw@... writes:
>
> <<Frater: (Love the e-mail address 'Lexorandi...). The point that I am
> trying to stress here is that if we really believe that sacraments work
> 'ex operate...' then having confirmed (Firmung) a child at Baptism as
> the Greeks (and now some Anglicans since 1979) do ,there is no need for
> a later repetition of the earlier rite.>>
>
> DKD: Yes, I understand your point, Father. But your point would have
> more force if, in fact, Eastern Chrismation and Western Confirmation
> were identical rites. My earlier point was that they are NOT, given
> the origin of Western Confirmation from a second unction included in
> the Roman rite that was absent in the Eastern rites. I think we need
> to go back to the time when the Roman rite was first imposed on the
> rest of the Western Church, particularly in the Gallican context. At
> first, the Gallican churches continued to do what they always did: (1)
> baptize, (2) chrismate, and (3) commune altogether. Only later, much
> later in many cases, did bishops get around to confirming the baptized,
> but they were already considered communing members. Thus, confirmation
> was treated very much like a "commissioning" service of the baptized
> for adult lay service. Only later did local councils begin to frown
> on this practice due to the neglect of people to come for Confirmation.
> For better or for worse, we of the BCP tradition inherited this later
> disdain for Communion prior to Confirmation.
>
> Regards,
> Daniel
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, send ANY message to
> <faithandlife-unsubscribe@...>
-----------------------------------------
This email was sent using FREE Catholic Online Webmail.
http://webmail.catholic.org/