Pray for Our Confirmandi as They Approach the Sacrament- Jan 22, 2023

Next Sunday, January 29, we are glad to host our Bishop, Bishop Joe Vásquez, He will be here in the afternoon to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation with about 30 high school students from our parish. It will be a wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our parishioners. Please remember all the confirmandi (those receiving the sacrament) in your prayers.

I try to interview each of the confirmandi individually. The technology of Zoom makes it much easier, if not quite as rich as an in-person meeting. I always ask what the Sacrament of Confirmation means and is all about. Invariably the students tell me that the Sacrament of Confirmation means that they are confirming their choice to be Catholic. They are confirming their faith.

That is certainly a part of the Sacrament of Confirmation, and we are happy to have them confirm their faith as their own, but it is NOT what Confirmation is primarily about. After all, the Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholics confirm babies at their Baptism. Rather, the basic meaning of Confirmation is that God confirms God’s choice of us. God chooses us as God’s beloved adopted children in Baptism, and now God confirms,
or guarantees, God’s choice of us. And the “confirmation number” so to speak, is not a string of letters and numbers, but rather the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

When we baptize an adult or teen, we follow that immediately with Confirmation, and then First Communion as the THIRD act. People who love and study liturgy would like for us to go back to this arrangement for ALL people, even infants. So babies would be Baptized, and either then or sometime before second grade when they make their First Communion, they would be Confirmed.

This is a BIG change. Dioceses that have done this (like San Angelo) find that it is, shall I say, not popular. Recently a few of us involved in catechesis here at St. Austin have looked at this again, especially as several parishes in our area are moving Confirmation from tenth grade to ninth grade. However, we have decided for the immediate future to remain with our current practice of confirming students in tenth grade.

In any case I ask you to remember our students receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation next weekend. Please pray that they will be strengthened in faith, to joyfully follow Christ more closely.

God bless!