Confirmation

by Fr. Charile Irvin

Note: This is only a sketchy outline needing to be fleshed out. I certainly do not represent this as anything at all complete. It is simply an aid to be used in exploring more deeply the subjects and ideas put forth. Hopefully it will provide the user with a contextual framework from in which to develop further the ideas I have set forth here for discussion.

A.   SPIRIT - WHAT IS IT

1. Stated ever so simply and concisely, the things of the spirit are the things of the mind and the things of the heart. They are non-material realities, realties not made of atoms and molecules, but which are nevertheless materialized and realized (made present and "real" to us) through our human bodies.
   
   
2. (Here read the Prologue to John's Gospel). It takes a human body to make present that which is spiritual. It is only through human flesh and blood that the Spirit comes into us; through which we encounter the Presence (God).
   

1. TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE SPIRIT:
   
   
   
   1. Friendship cannot be given unless the recipient is willing to receive it. Transformation, a change in the form of our lives, is an inner reality that gives us the ability to receive the spirit that is the mind and the heart of another person - along with giving our spirit to another.
      
      
   2. In order to identify myself through love with a friend I must yield my whole self to him and not merely know about him or be merely spatially present to him. I must allow his mind and heart into mine, and I must empty mine into his. Our attitudes are changed only when we assimilate the attitudes of others who are "significant others" for us, and allow them into us.
      
      
   3. Affecting the consciousness of another is a presence quite different than mere location next to him or mere partnership in working toward a common goal. Transformation occurs when our attitudes are not only touched but affected by life-directions and attitudes that come to us from the outside, and we allow them to change ours - and consequently our lives. That is only achieved through the surrender of our pride and the surrender of our autonomy to the other, in this case the Other that is the Holy Spirit. This is the only way that the Holy Spirit can transform us by His Personal presence.
      
      Theological Note: Submission means "standing under the mission" of another. Submission to the Holy Spirit places us under the Holy Spirit's mission, or purpose, or directed activity.
      
      
   4. GRACE = gratia = gift. We express our love for each other through the giving of gifts, through giving each other "presents" thus making ourselves present to each other. Presence comes through presents or gifts of love. Thus, a gift becomes a sacrament of self-communication or self-donation.
      
      Theological Note: This is the inner life of the Holy Trinity. Furthermore, it is the life in which the Holy Spirit is IS-ing. Just as the Persons of the Holy Trinity are present to each other totally and infinitely, so also we live "in the image and likeness of God" by living in that gracious way via participation in the ultimate reality that is God.
      
      
   5. The Holy Spirit forms us into the Sonship of Christ, thereby drawing us and uniting us to the Father. The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead into a New Humanity. The Holy Spirit impelled and moved Jesus into His public ministry, into his mission into our world to bring healing and wholeness to is fractured brokenness. In the Resurrection the Holy Spirit raised Jesus of Nazareth to be the Christ of glory.
      
      Confirmation is the act of the Church confirming that this can be so (and is so in fact) within us because, if we respond to God's offer, we share in the Life that is living within the Body of Christ. We submit ourselves to His action and present ourselves to God in Baptism in order that we might be confirmed as God's sons and daughters in His Son. In so doing we acknowledge, confess and witness that we have a Father who gives us life, along with a destiny and purpose in life, and who thereby invests us with dignity and meaningfulness in our living out life.
      
      
   
   
2. THE RITE OF CONFIRMATION:
   
   
   
   1. Proclamation of God's Word from Holy Scripture.
      
      
   2. Imposition of hands - a sign of embrace, intimacy, reconciliation, love and communion.
      
      
   3. Chrismation - Anointing with Chrism in order to effect our "being made over into Christ." We are literally Christ-ed, Christened (conformed into Christ), by the power of the Holy Spirit.
      
      
   4. Kiss of Peace - Again a sign of the Presence of the Spirit, the One who is Love, in a sign of peace and communion.
      
      
   
   
3. THE EFFECTS OF CONFIRMATION:
   
   
   
   1. Christ acting through His Body, the Church, confirms and seals what happens in Baptism and is radically a part of baptism. Christ's humanity was, by the power of the Holy Spirit, raised from the dead into a new Humanity by the power of the Holy Spirit in God's New Creation. The Garden of the Resurrection becomes the Garden of Eden for God's new creation. Note that God's life-giving Holy Spirit was at work in both. And note, too, His workings in both the Garden of Eden and the Garden of the Resurrection.
      
      
   2. The one confirmed is "ordained" into the Priesthood of the Faithful, into the total reality of Christ living in His Body, the Church; one is ordained into acting in Christ's Priesthood upon human history and in our world. Thus there is an ordering, an orienting, an ordaining into Christ's mission as King, Prophet and Priest in all of humanity.
      
      
   3. The Holy Spirit confers an office on the one confirmed, the office of being a public witness to the power of God at work in the Risen Christ present now in the world in His Body, the Church. The one confirmed becomes a communicator of the Spirit of Christ, an animator of God's Life in our humanity.
      
      Theological Note: Opening ourselves in Confirmation to the inner transforming power of God's personal Presence within us at the more profound levels of our own being, we are in-spirit-ed, inspired, such that our attitudes, our patterns of living, and our perceptions and understandings of human reality can be transformed. Thus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we may have "eyes to see and ears to hear" the marvelous deeds of God and His saving acts in our own personal lives, in the world around us, and in human history.
      
      When a priest is ordained or a bishop is consecrated they are anointed with Chrism and given an ordination, an orientation, a "directedness" in life to fulfill a function, namely that of making Christ present to us.
      
      When Kings and Queens were crowned they were anointed with Chrism and given an "ordination" to bring the Peace of God into their kingdom, as well as to hold the common-wealth in God's reign. They were to fulfill the priestly function of bringing their people into community, into a holy communion between themselves and with God.
      
      
   
   
4. SCRIPTURAL NOTES:
   
   
   
   1. GENESIS - Note the action of God's Spirit in creation.
      
      Breath = life; God breathes life into Adam and into Eve.
      
      Noah and the Ark; God sends a wind and the waters of chaos subside. See Genesis 8. Note that it's an EAST wind. In biblical symbolism, anything coming from the East is good, (e.g. the Magi at Christ's birth, and so forth.)
      
      
   2. EXODUS - It is a wind, the "Breath of God", that parts the waters of the Red Sea. See Exodus 14:21.
      
      Theological Note: One has to distinguish between wind as a force of death and wind as a source of life (just as with water) which is seen as both death dealing and life giving. Wind also denotes the Presence; thus Moses meets God at the top of Mt. Sinai in the midst of a storm (cf. Exodus:18). The Presence comes to the Apostles at Pentecost in a great wind. Elijah discerns God's voice in a subtle little whisper of wind (cf. 1 Kings 19:9-13).
      
      
   3. Other actions of the Spirit:
      
      
      
      
      1. Prophetic Freedom: People filled with the Spirit speak out boldly. See Luke 1:41-43; 2:25-32; 2:36-38; and 3:21-22.
         
         
      2. Power to Forgive Sins: Read John 20:19-24.
         
         
      3. Commissioning by the Spirit: Christ's mission, His "being sent" is found in Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:9-13; Luke 4:1-38, Luke 10:16-23; John 1:32-34; Isaiah 42:1-4 and Isaiah 61:1-2.
         
         
      4. Pentecost Prefigured: See Jeremiah 31, 32 & 33. Also Ezekiel 37. Note Joel 3 in connection with Christ's crucifixion.
         
         
      5. Bonding Into a Community: Compare Ezekiel 37 with Acts 2:1-4. Baptism into the Christian Community is followed by the laying on of hands in order to communicate and pass on the Community's Spirit. See Acts 11:11-18

         Theological Note: It can be seen, now, that Confirmation confers an Office in the Church upon the person confirmed, namely the responsibility to go out of our own private "upper rooms" and into the world to communicate the Spirit, namely the life, the mind and the heart of Jesus Christ to those around us in the public square. The actions of the Spirit will, depending upon our response to Him, begin to manifest themselves in our lives - and in the world around us.