Confirmation
Important Dates:
January 18, 2025 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM—7th Grade Confirmation Retreat
1:30 PM to 2:30 PM—Adoration and Confession in the church (Parents are invited to attend this portion of the Retreat. Please meet in Unity at 1 PM for refreshments, socializing, a short presentation, and to answer any questions. At 1:30 PM we will go up to the church for Adoration and Confession).
February 16, 2025 5 PM Confirmation Dinner and Rehearsal with the sponsor (This evening is for the student and sponsors only; a parent may attend if the sponsor is unable to attend; it is an evening of bonding, reflection, and rehearsal).
February 21, 2025 7 PM—Confirmation Mass with the Bishop; Please arrive between 6:15 and 6:30 PM with your sponsor in Unity, parents may go inside the church to get a seat. Please have your student wear their Sunday best, modest attire.
Please contact Catherine Szeibert with any questions or if you are interested in volunteering to help at one of these events. Thank you!
cszeibert@stfoa-parish.org
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At Confirmation we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and confirm our baptismal promises. Greater awareness of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conferred through the anointing of chrism oil and the laying on of hands by the Bishop.
Confirmation perfects Baptismal grace; it is the sacrament which gives the Holy Spirit in order to root us more deeply in the divine filiation, incorporate us more firmly into Christ, strengthen our bond with the Church, associate us more closely with her mission, and help us bear witness to the Christian faith in words accompanied by deeds. (CCC 1316)
Through the Sacrament of Confirmation we renew our baptismal promises and commit to living a life of maturity in the Christian faith. As we read in the Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church) from the Second Vatican Council:
Bound more intimately to the Church by the sacrament of confirmation, [the baptized] are endowed by the Holy Spirit with special strength; hence they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith both by word and by deed as true witnesses of Christ. (no. 11) Scriptural Foundation for Confirmation
In the Acts of the Apostles we read of the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. While baptism is the sacrament of new life, confirmation gives birth to that life. Baptism initiates us into the Church and names us as children of God, whereas confirmation calls us forth as God’s children and unites us more fully to the active messianic mission of Christ in the world.
After receiving the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles went out and confirmed others, showing confirmation to be an individual and separate sacrament: Peter and John at Samaria (Acts 8:5-6, (206) 242-4575 and Paul at Ephesus (Acts 19:5-6). Also the Holy Spirit came down on Jews and Gentiles alike in Caesarea, prior to their baptisms. Recognizing this as a confirmation by the Holy Spirit, Peter commanded that they be baptized (cf. Acts 10:47).
