The Sacrament of the Holy Spirit: Confirmation

by Father Lambert Nieme

The Sacrament of the Holy Spirit: Confirmation

“… you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father’!” (Rm 8: 15)

The coronavirus pandemic is a big challenge for the education of our youth. Thank God, His Holy Spirit does not abandon us. He is inspiring all those who are working hard to improve our living conditions in general. The Holy Spirit worked with us as we organized our faith formation via Zoom for the first time this year. Thanks to the cooperative effort of the parents, our dedicated Catechists, and the youth, we are so happy to celebrate their Confirmation.

Words are powerless to express my gratitude to our team for the hard work done for our youth to be Confirmed. Thanks to Bishop Reed for administering the sacrament of Confirmation to our youth. I am grateful to Father Joe, our pastor, for allowing me to run the Confirmation Program this year. Thanks to Brian Sousa who started the good work the first year of our Confirmandi. What would I do without our dedicated Catechists and our administrative assistant Linda Olsen? It is harder and harder in this challenging time to get the number of volunteers we need, but you made time in your busy schedules to step up helping and teaching our youth. I cannot thank you enough for your dedication and teamwork. You deserve the trust of the Church and the parents. I am so grateful to all the parents for trusting us to deal with your children's faith formation, especially in these challenging times. We will continue to work together with you parents to help our children to grow in the love of God and their fellow humans. It requires the collaboration of the children themselves. Thanks to you, our youth, for your collaboration. Your Confirmation would not happen without your involvement.

However, your Confirmation is not a graduation from religious education or a reward from God for living a good Christian life. As a sacrament of a character or a “seal” of the Holy Spirit, the sacrament of Confirmation is a gift and grace from God. Like all other sacraments, Confirmation is a way of withdrawing from sin. It is a medicine for spiritual life, a remedy against the weakness of the soul. It marks your total consecration and belonging to Christ, your enrollment in his service forever. That is why you need to stay in touch with the Church.

As you were baptized as infants, Confirmation provides you an opportunity to ratify (i.e., profess publicly, freely, and deliberately) what was first effected for you at Baptism. It is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. For “by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1285). In Baptism you were called to holiness and have become disciples and followers of Jesus. Confirmation equips you with the resources to help you reach Christian maturity and respond to the call of Baptism. Through Baptism you have been welcomed into a community of believers to extend God’s message of loving mercy. Confirmation brings new meaning to this mission by connecting your faith in a new way to your concrete life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the ongoing presence of Jesus in the world. Confirmation celebrates the work of the Holy Spirit in daily lives of all the baptized. It strengthens us to do God’s work and spread the faith on earth. As we have been commissioned by Jesus to build the Kingdom of God on earth, it is our responsibility to share our faith with others, to enrich the world, and to be present in our society as Christians. Confirmation assists the recipient to become a public witness of the values of the Gospel as they are proclaimed in the assembly of the Church community.

Like all other sacraments, confirmation does not take away our natural inclination or our human tendency towards sin. That is why we need divine grace to keep us far from sin beyond the moment we receive Confirmation. It requires spiritual nourishment through regular Eucharist participation and witness to the Gospel, starting with our own families.

In this weekend of Mother’s Day, let us pray, through the intercession of our Mother Mary, may all who are receiving the sacrament of Confirmation this year be constantly inspired and strengthened by the Holy Spirit; may they follow the example of Mary, Mother of our Lord, and imitate her fidelity, humility, and self-giving love.