“Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.”
--- Acts 8:14-17
If you are looking for information about Youth (High School) Confirmation, please click here!
Like all the Sacraments, Confirmation is a moment of encounter with Jesus Christ. By receiving this Sacrament, we are joined more closely to Christ and are more fully conformed to Him.
The particular gift of Confirmation is the Gift of the Holy Spirit. It is not that we are without the Holy Spirit prior to Confirmation. In the Sacrament of Baptism, we become “temples of the Holy Spirit.” But in Confirmation, the Holy Spirit is given with a new fullness, especially to equip the Christian to carry on the work of Christ in the world.
The model for Confirmation is Pentecost. Jesus chose Twelve Apostles and commissioned them to carry on His work after His death and resurrection. Nonetheless, even after the Apostles had been thoroughly convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead, they remained ill equipped to carry on His work.
The situation was transformed by the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Spirit was heard as a rushing wind and seen as tongues of fire. Once He had come upon the Apostles, they opened the doors, went out into Jerusalem and preached Jesus Christ with words that were miraculously understood by Jews from all over the world in their own languages.
From the beginning of the Church, the Apostles shared the gift of the Holy Spirit with those who had been baptized by the laying on of hands. This is the essence of the Sacrament of Confirmation to this day. And the Sacrament of Confirmation is given to equip Christians to share in the work of Christ and the Church to make disciples of all the nations.
If you are an adult parishioner who has not received the Sacrament of Confirmation please contact the parish office.
Baptism, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the "sacraments of Christian initiation," whose unity must be safeguarded. It must be explained to the faithful that the reception of the sacrament of Confirmation 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."
It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of Confirmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost.
From this fact, Confirmation brings an increase and deepening of baptismal grace:
- it roots us more deeply in the divine filiation which makes us cry, "Abba! Father!";
- it unites us more firmly to Christ;
- it increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us;
- it renders our bond with the Church more perfect;
- it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross:
Like Baptism which it completes, Confirmation is given only once, for it too imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, the "character," which is the sign that Jesus Christ has marked a Christian with the seal of his Spirit by clothing him with power from on high so that he may be his witness.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 1285, 1302-1304