The 1662 Book of Common Prayer remains the standard of doctrine and worship for Anglican churches around the world. Its rubrics—those brief instructions that govern the conduct of worship—carry significant weight for defining Anglican order and sacramental discipline.
On the subject of Holy Communion and Confirmation, this rubric describes:
“And there shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed.”
For some, this single sentence has been read as a categorical prohibition against paedocommunion—the admission of baptized infants or children to the Lord’s Table before confirmation. But does it, in fact, prohibit it?
Reading the Rubric Carefully
The language of the rubric establishes two conditions for admission:
- The person has been confirmed, or
- The person is “ready and desirous to be confirmed.“
Notice what the rubric does not say. It does not define what “ready and desirous” entails, nor does it specify an age or intellectual capacity. The phrase is pastoral, not juridical. It assumes a normal sequence of catechesis and episcopal confirmation but leaves space for exception.
In the seventeenth century, this clause was written in a church still reforming from medieval abuses, not in a context debating infant communion.
The Early Church and Anglican Continuity
The patristic consensus is clear: in the early centuries of the Church, all the baptized (including infants) were communicated. Baptism, chrismation, and Eucharist formed one rite of initiation. Only later, as confirmation became separated in time and theology developed toward “age of reason” models, did Western churches begin to delay communion. (However, it is worth noting that since the beginning of the 20th Century, Pope Pius X changed this rule and lowered first communion age to even before the age of reason – age of reason commonly understood as at least 7 years old).
Anglican reformers operated on a principle that sought to restore primitive practice wherever consistent with Scripture. The 1662 compilers were heirs to that impulse. They preserved confirmation as a pastoral strengthening rite of baptismal vows within episcopal order. Nothing in the text requires one to exclude a baptized child from the Table.
Faith, Order, and the Meaning of “Ready and Desirous”
Much of the debate turns on what constitutes being “ready and desirous.”
If readiness is measured by cognitive awareness or self-conscious profession, then paedocommunion seems excluded. But if readiness is defined covenantally—by baptismal incorporation into the Body of Christ and the nurture of faith within the household of God—then a baptized child may indeed be “ready” in the truest sense.
“Desire,” too, can be communal rather than merely personal. The Church, standing in for her baptized children, desires their full participation in Christ’s life. In this sense, the rubric is satisfied through the faith of the Church and the intention of the parents who bring their child to the altar.
The 1662 rubric, when read generously, does not forbid paedocommunion. It simply prescribes that communicants be either confirmed or under the care of the bishop toward that end.
Thus, a parish that communes baptized children under episcopal oversight may do so without violating the spirit of the Prayer Book rubrics.
Like debates over infant baptism, the confusion arises when the sacraments are treated as expressions of prior personal faith or understanding, rather than as means of grace freely given by God—they are to be objective gifts, not subjective measures of spiritual ability.
Children, even infants, commune because it is God who invites them to the table, and it is God who nourishes, teaches, and perfects their faith through His own gifts.
Further Reading
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