First confession and first Holy Communion for children

Two sacraments, one preparation, and a set of questions that are almost entirely practical: how old, who runs it, when does the parish take names, and does confession really have to come first. The doctrine is settled and short. The timetable is local, and that is the part parents actually need.

What Church law asks

The universal law of the Church names no age. It sets a condition instead. Giving Holy Communion to children requires that they have sufficient knowledge and careful preparation, so that they understand the mystery of Christ according to their capacity and are able to receive the body of Christ with faith and devotion.

The duty of arranging that falls first on parents and on those who take their place, and on the parish priest. The law asks them to see that children who have reached the use of reason are properly prepared and, after they have made sacramental confession, are admitted to Communion as soon as possible. It also leaves the parish priest a judgement to make about a child who has not reached the use of reason or whom he judges is not sufficiently disposed.

Two consequences follow that are worth naming, because both come up constantly. There is no minimum age written into the law, so a diocese or a parish naming a school year is applying the law to local circumstances rather than quoting it. And there is no maximum either: the Diocese of Salford states plainly that a child should normally be in Year 3 or older and that there is no upper age limit. An older child, or an adult, is not too late.

Once someone has been admitted to Communion, the yearly obligation applies: each of the faithful is bound to receive Holy Communion at least once a year.

Why confession comes first

The Catechism puts it in one sentence: children must go to the sacrament of Penance before receiving Holy Communion for the first time. Church law describes the same order, placing sacramental confession between the preparation and the reception of Communion.

So the two are one programme, with the first confession part of the way through it rather than an optional extra bolted on. A parish that celebrates first Reconciliation in Advent and first Holy Communion the following summer is following that order, not running two unrelated schemes.

For a child, a first confession is short, and the bishops of England and Wales publish the words and the shape it takes: the sign of the cross, an opening sentence, the sins said simply, some advice from the priest, an act of contrition, absolution, and a penance to carry out afterwards. The same guidance advises spending a few minutes beforehand on an examination of conscience and not spending forever trying to remember every small fault. Our guide to finding and going to confession covers the rite in full for anyone who wants to walk through it at home first.

When it happens in Britain

There is no British rule. There are diocesan patterns, and they are close enough to each other to be useful as expectations, so long as they are checked against the parish.

In England and Wales, the Diocese of Salford answers the question directly for its own parishes: the child must be a baptised Catholic and in Year 3 of primary school or older, parents and children take part in a programme of preparation, and there is an expectation that the family attends Sunday Mass as often as possible. Exact dates vary from parish to parish, and most parishes begin preparation in September or October. First confession usually falls in Advent or in Lent, and the diocese states that all children celebrate Reconciliation before their first Holy Communion.

In Scotland the stages are named after the Scottish school years. The catechetical office of the Diocese of Aberdeen says children typically prepare for first confession at the age of six or seven, in Primary 3, and for first Communion at seven or eight, in Primary 4, adding that each parish may work to a different timeframe depending on circumstances.

Read those as what they are: two dioceses describing their own practice. A parish in a third diocese may open enrolment at a different point in the year, and the only way to know is to ask it.

Who runs the preparation

Normally the parish. Sometimes the local Catholic primary school runs it, and in many places the school and the parish share it, with the classroom covering the teaching and the parish covering the celebrations. Preparation programmes increasingly ask a parent to work through the material with the child rather than dropping them off, and the Salford guidance recommends resources built for parents and children together.

A child who does not attend a Catholic school is not at a disadvantage in this. The same diocesan guidance says parish preparation teams are usually delighted to welcome such children onto the programme and to provide any extra help they need. The route in is the parish, not the school.

What a parish will want to establish is that the child is a baptised Catholic, which is the first of the Salford conditions, and that the family will be at Sunday Mass through the programme. What it will not do is treat the request as unusual: enrolling children is ordinary parish work every autumn.

How to enrol

Find the parish first, and the parish rather than the nearest building: a single parish often serves two or three churches, and the preparation programme belongs to the parish.

Look up the church on our directory of churches, or start from the Mass times pages if you know the town but not the parish. Each church page carries the contact details and, where the parish publishes one, a link to its own website; the newsletter there is where enrolment dates are announced, usually in the weeks before the programme starts. Where you are new to an area and unsure which parish covers you, the diocese pages list the parishes in each diocese.

Then speak to the parish. The Salford guidance says the best approach is to speak to the parish priest after Sunday Mass or at some other time, and that a family can also contact the parish by phone or email. A parish office will tell you when the programme starts, what it involves and what it needs from you.

If a contact detail on this site is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.

What the sacraments are, briefly

Catholic teaching holds that Holy Communion is the body and blood of Christ, and the preparation is aimed at a child being able to receive it with faith and devotion rather than at passing a test. Penance, confession and Reconciliation are three names for one sacrament, in which sins committed after baptism are forgiven through the priest’s absolution.

Anyone at the celebration who is not receiving Communion is not left out of the procession. The three bishops’ conferences of England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland record in One Bread One Body that in many Catholic churches people unable to receive Holy Communion are strongly encouraged to go forward for a blessing at the same time as others go forward for the sacrament, joining the same procession to the altar. Our guide to what happens at Mass sets out the hour itself, and the holy days of obligation differ between England and Wales and Scotland, which is worth knowing once a family is going regularly.