HOLY COMMUNION GIVEN TO CHILDREN

For a long time it was customary to communicate children, under the species of wine, immediately after their baptism. This used to be done by the priest dipping his finger in the Precious Blood and then putting it into the child’s mouth to suck. The custom is still kept up in the East, where Baptism, Holy Eucharist, and Confirmation are administered on the same occasion. Romsee says (iv. p. 309) that this custom prevailed, at least in some churches of the West, up to the eleventh century. According to the practice of the modern Greek Church, infants are now generally given the Precious Blood in a spoon.