Paedocommunion

From the Anglican Rite of Baptism

Question: Why then are infants baptized, when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform them?
Answer: Because they promise them both by their Sureties (Sponsors); which promise, when they come to age, themselves are bound to perform.

Dost thou, therefore, in the name of this Child, renounce the devil...
Minister: Wilt thou be baptized in this Faith?
Answer: That is my desire.
Having now, in the name of this Child, made these promises...

From the Roman Rite of Baptism

Priest: N., what is it you are seeking from God's Church?
Sponsor: Faith.
Priest: And faith, that does that obtain for you?
Sponsor: Life everlasting.
Priest: If your desire is to enter into life, keep the commandments...

Priest: N., are you willing to be baptized?
Sponsor: I am.

X. presents a very compelling elucidation for why it would be permissible to administer the Blessed Sacrament to baptized children who have not yet attained to the age of reason. If the Sacraments are truly Means of Grace which confer grace to the soul ex opere operato, apart from the merits, workings, or deservings of the recipient, and if Baptism extends grace and regeneration to a child without the use of reason by virtue of the Faith of the Church into which the child is thus incorporated, it seems theologically correct to apply the same sacramental outworking to the Mystery of the Lord's Body and Blood in the Holy Communion. Those incorporated into Christ's Church, which is the extension of the Incarnation, are therefore rendered living members of the Lord in need of perpetual spiritual nourishment and sustenance. Children, like adults, have to eat to live, just as we have to be born to live. We are born to the Church in Baptism and fed in the Church by the Holy Eucharist. None of us, adult or child, can fully or rightly 'discern the Lord's Body' (I Corinthians 11) in the ultimate objective sense, for the mystery of the Real Presence escapes human knowledge and reason - for everyone. The Eastern Orthodox Church practices the Communion of infants and small children and bases the praxis on this underlying principle, that is, the Faith of the Church operates in the Sacraments in the objective conferral of grace to the recipient of the Sacraments. In any given sacramental ministration, it is the Faith of the Body of Christ of which we are members that supplies what we may lack in the relative or subjective exercise of our personal faith. For this reason the Liturgy itself always supplies for and compensates for any deficiencies in the celebrant, congregation, or in the performance of the same. Calvinist theologians argue, convincingly, that just as Baptism fulfils the Old Covenant rite of circumcision and the Holy Eucharist fulfils the Old Covenant rite of Passover (Exodus 16) so as the whole household of faith participated fully in both rites in the Old Testament so the New People of God as a whole, children included, should participate in the Sacraments of grace and salvation. This is a convincing and deeply-penetrating line of thought. In the end, I believe the Orthodox Eastern practice, which was our Western practice for centuries, in unanswerable in its legitimacy. The question is not so much about children receiving Holy Communion - as I see it, the only questions that remain are 'what do we do with Confirmation?' and 'how does the Blessed Sacrament relate to Baptism and Confirmation?'

That's the hard part, coming as we do from the Western tradition.