October 15, 2023 - Pastor Message
04/30/2024THE YEAR OF MISSION
CONFIRMATION
“When Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior of the country and came to Ephesus where he found some disciples. He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ They answered him, ‘We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ He said, ‘How were you baptized?’ They replied, ‘With the baptism of John.’ Paul then said, ‘John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.’ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:1-6).
Last week we reflected on the basic canonical requirements for the sacrament of baptism. This week we will do the same for confirmation, which, in its origin and purpose, is a sister sacrament of baptism. The matter, or sensible material, we use for confirmation is the oil of sacred chrism. This is one of three holy oils we use for the sacraments, which are blessed each year for the entire diocese by the bishop in a special Mass called the chrism Mass. Chrism is the blessed oil we use for the sacraments we only celebrate once, symbolizing the gift of the Holy Spirit that consecrates the person who receives it for sacred service. In confirmation, the minister lays hands on the person receiving it and anoints him or her on the forehead with chrism, praying, “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit”, which is the form of the sacrament.
The minister of confirmation is ordinarily a bishop, symbolizing the recipient’s full communion with the Church, embodied in the diocese, of which the bishop is the chief shepherd. In special circumstances, such as when an adult is being baptized or received into the Church through the RCIA, a priest may also serve as minister of the sacrament. The recipient is anyone who has been baptized and has reached the age of reason, normally seven years old. This is because of the effects of confirmation, which seals and strengthens the grace of baptism with a new infusion of the Holy Spirit. In confirmation, the recipient confirms the faith in which they were baptized, and God confirms, or strengthens, the person with the gift of the Holy Spirit to live out that faith as his disciple. The gift of the Spirit is manifold, but we often summarize it as the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and the fear of the Lord.
Confirmation has gone through many variations in the history of the Church, and even today is celebrated differently in different dioceses. In the ancient Church, it was celebrated together with baptism, as the passage from the Acts of the Apostles above indicates, and it is still celebrated that way for those who are baptized as adults or children of catechetical age in the RCIA. Over time, however, as infant baptism became the norm and the Church grew, bishops could not be present for every baptism. People had to wait months, even years, for the bishop to visit their parish and confirm the newly baptized, and so confirmation became separated from its roots in baptism. It took on a meaning of its own, with its own set of norms, including the proper age to celebrate it. That is the biggest variation today, with different dioceses celebrating confirmation at different ages. Our own diocese recently changed the age of confirmation from eleventh grade to ninth grade to stress that it is not the end of a person’s growth in the faith but the beginning, recalling its original meaning as the sister sacrament of baptism. Please pray for all our people preparing for confirmation in faith formation and the RCIA, and pray daily to live out the grace of your own confirmation as fully initiated disciples of Christ.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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