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Delivered!
Confirmation, Part 3
BY Mark Shea
October 25-31, 2009 Issue |
Posted 10/16/09 at 12:39 PM
We seem so
often to be incurable legalists when it comes to the things of God. Some people
talk as though baptism doesn’t really stick unless you are confirmed, too.
Others wonder whether, since baptism does “stick,” confirmation is really
necessary — as though the goal is to achieve a sort of
minimum-daily-adult-requirement level of being “good enough” without having to
really do the “extra credit” work.
This entire approach to the
sacraments is profoundly out of tune with what God is trying to say to us in
these cosmic gestures of love. It’s like a bride on her wedding night asking,
“If I kiss my husband on the altar is that enough, or do I have to kiss him
again later?” It’s like a mother giving birth and then saying, “Look. The kid
is breathing. Do I have to clothe or
feed him too?” It’s like asking, “Why bother
getting an A when a D is a passing grade?”
We are not called to
minimum-daily-adult-requirement Christianity. We are called “to the unity of
the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
As we have seen, confirmation
“seals” the believer and leaves a “mark” on his soul. That’s because
confirmation is ordered toward mission: toward making your life something that,
when read by others, says: “My life is not explicable apart from Jesus Christ.”
That’s why Paul says, “You are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written
not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but
on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3).
As mature Christians, we are
commissioned by Holy Mother Church to go and bear witness to Jesus Christ in
the world, that others might come to believe in him. This is why the Mass ends
with the words “Ite, missa est” (Go,
it’s the sending forth). “Apostle” means “sent one.” With the power of
confirmation, we are granted the grace to be apostles to the world. Our
apostolate begins the moment Mass ends, because in the world we laypeople
preside every bit as much as, at the altar, the priest presides. You are signed
with the cross, sealed with the chrism, and delivered to the world to be read.
Because confirmation is grace and
not magic, preparation is important.
Confirmation gives us the Holy
Spirit in order to strengthen our relationship with God as his children, but it
also has a huge horizontal dimension meant to strengthen our bond with the
Church and enable us to be witnesses sent by God through Holy Church to the world.
This is one of the ways in which Christian maturity is countercultural. Instead
of sending us off to be the Lone Ranger Rugged Individualist, it sends us more
deeply into the heart of the Church and bids us speak to the world from there.
That, among other things, is what is
symbolized by the necessity of a sponsor for confirmation.
None of this is doable, of course,
by oneself. That is why the minister of the sacrament prays for the
confirmands, “Give them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of
right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence. Fill them
with the spirit of wonder and awe in your presence.”
Next time, we will start looking at
the seven sanctifying gifts of the Holy Spirit and how we can lay hold of them.
Mark
Shea is content editor of
CatholicExchange.com.
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