Restoring Infant Communion & Liturgical Worship in the Christian West
Interview with Fr. Deacon Anthony Dragani (Byzantine Catholic Deacon)
Hello Barrel Aged Christians!
As you know, this ministry is dedicated to renewing the church and culture by descending into the ancient cellars of the Apostles and the Church Fathers in order to bring forth its beauty, goodness, and truth to the world. One key way to renew the culture today is through the renewal of Christian worship, which is the anchor of culture itself. How we worship says a lot about how we view God, ourselves, the world, and the grand human story.
When I began studying the area of worship in the ancient church, I was shocked to discover that it looked very liturgical, sacramental, and even mystical (as well as Catholic and Orthodox). In other words, it was similar to Jewish worship of the Old Testament and actually grew out of it, while being transformed and fulfilled in Christ. It wasn’t that Jesus came to abolish ritual or the Temple, but rather He gave us new rites (or sacraments such as baptism, communion, ordination, confession, anointing of the sick, etc) and brought the Temple to every hill, valley, field and seaside. In John 4:21-23, Jesus states,
“The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”
The worship of the true and living God has literally been brought to the whole world, and the apex of this worship is offering Christ’s pure and priceless Body and Blood back to the Father as prophesied in Malachi 1:11 which states,
“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.”
Although this is slowly changing today, many Protestants still misunderstand the role of incense, altars, ritual blessings, priest vestments, and the priest facing toward the ‘Holy of Holies’ or ‘Eden’ (Ad Orientem) throughout church history. I also misunderstood the symbolic world of worship until I discovered the worship manuals (liturgies) of the ancient church. I was surprised to see that the church fathers envision worship that is in harmony with the worship that God mandated in the Old Testament. From Spain to Rome to India, we see worship emerging out of the 1st century and into the 2nd and 3rd centuries that reveal Christ’s preference for this type of worship.
What does all of this have to do with restoring infant chrismation (confirmation) and communion in the West? All of the ancient churches held to the practice of infant baptism with chrismation and communion, because they viewed it not only as part of Apostolic Tradition (the scriptures in unwritten form), but also as an extension of Temple worship. In the Old Testament, infants were fully initiated into God’s covenant with Israel as the People of God. In the New Covenant, baptism fulfills circumcision; chrismation gives us the name of ‘Christian,’ and communion sprinkles us with the blood of Christ’s sacrifice (similar to how Moses sprinkled all of God’s people with the blood of the sacrifice).
“Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words” (Exodus 24:8).
Communion also initiates the child into His New Covenant.
“For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
It wasn’t until about the 13th century, that the Catholic Church in the West began spreading out the sacraments of initiation, while the other eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches retained the earlier practice. My humble prayer is that some day the Pope and bishops will gather together once again to restore this ancient practice in the Catholic West as it presently exists in the Christian East.
If you would like to explore this topic much more in depth, check out my article below from a few months ago. You can also watch my most recent interview with Fr. Anthony Dragani on this topic above. Enjoy!
Be entirely His,
Kyle