Confirmation Session 1

This section serves to provide parents and catechists some background information so that they may be more fully prepared to teach the sessions. There are additional resources and links to various curriculum here. 

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Proclamation: The Main Theme

• Confirmation both confirms and strengthens baptismal grace and with Baptism and the Eucharist, completes the Sacraments of Initiation. 

The three Sacraments of Initiation are

• Baptism
• Confirmation
• Eucharist

We are born anew into Baptism, we are strengthened by Confirmation,  and we receive the food of eternal life - the Eucharist (CCC 1212).

Baptism is the start of our Christian initiation. At the time of our Baptism, not only were we cleansed from the all sin including the original sin of Adam and Eve, but we became part of God's family and part of the Body of Christ - the Church. We receive sanctifying grace which helps to purify our hearts and is intended to help us to become holy. 

Blessed Fulton Sheen reminds us that "in order to live a natural life, we must be born to it. In order to live the spiritual life, we must also be born to it." Baptism gives us a gateway to new birth in Christ (CC1213). It invites us into a life with Jesus, not simply as followers, but into a deep relationship in which we live in Him and He lives in us. We are able to share in His divine nature. 

We are physical and spiritual; we have body and soul. Just like we are not just physical creatures, the Sacraments are also not just ritual ceremonies. The water in Baptism is made powerful by the Holy Spirit. The Sacraments make "visible what is invisible." In other words, Baptism makes visible the invisible reality that we are being cleansed from our sin and reborn into Christ. 

Example: Gratitude is an invisible experience however, when you write a thank-you note to someone for having given you a gift, you make visible your own gratitude. 

But how can we be reborn if we are already alive?  
"To baptize (Greek baptizein) means to 'plunge' or 'immerse'; the 'plunge' into water symbolizes...burial into Christ's death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as 'a new creature.'" (CCC 1214)

Romans 6:3-4: "Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life."

"This sacrament is also called "the washing of regeeration and renewal by the Holy Spirit," for it signifies and actually brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which no one "can enter the kingdom of God." 

John 3:5: "Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit."

 
The  Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus. It is not just a symbol. Remember that we are body and soul - not just physical beings? The Eucharist is not just physical food of bread and wine. The bread and wine simply make visible the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus makes our bodies a Temple for Him. He transforms us and allows us to share in His divine nature. 

"By the consecration, the transubstantiation (change of substance) of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about.  Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Bood, with his soul and his divinity" (CCC 1413). 

In John 6, Jesus tells us that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we will have no life within us. "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true flesh and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in Him" (54-56). 

This was a tough teaching for the apostles and many of Jesus' followers abandoned him over this teaching. Fr. Mike Schmitz says, "Can you imagine if the Apostles had left him too?   Jesus is willing to risk the entire program of salvation on this one thing.  Jesus still would have died and risen again, but there would have been no one to spread that message." This is how serious Jesus is about the Eucharist! 

"Participation in the Holy Sacrifice identifies us with Jesus' Heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints" (CCC 1419). 
 
Confirmation is the Sacrament that completes the baptismal grace (CC1285). We are reborn in Christ in Baptism but sent forth as witnesses in Confirmation. T Confirmation seals us in the Holy Spirit. Dr. Brant Pitre reminds us that this is not a second Baptism or a graduation day. "It is the confirming of your Baptism... to not just simply be a child of God in Baptism... but bear witness to God even in the face of rejection, persecution, and death. That is the power of the Holy Spirit."

he Lord promised to send his Holy Spirit to the Apostles after he ascended into Heaven:
Acts 1:8: But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Jesus sent his Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost to enable them to be his witnesses, "to defend the faith in word and deed" (CCC 1285). Notice the transformation of the Apostles when they received the Holy Spirit in Acts Chapter 2. The Apostles were gathered together in the Upper Room with Mary. They were together in one place to protect each other because people knew that they were followers of Jesus who had just been crucified. 

Once they received the Holy Spirit, however, they were no longer afraid. The Apostles went out to spread the Gospel. They joyfully faced their imprisonments, ostracization, and eventual martyrdom. The gifts of the Holy Spirit transform us so completely that we may be faithful witnesses and win souls for Christ! 

"From that time on, the apostles, in fulfillment of Christ's will, imparted to the newly baptized by the laying on of hands the gift of the Spirit that completes the grace of Baptism...The imposition of hands is rightly recognized by the Catholic tradition as the origin of the sacrament of Confirmation, which in a certain way, perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the Church." (CCC 1288)

Hebrews 6:1-6 also refers to the Apostles' activity in the Church through repentance, Baptism,  the "taste of the Heavenly gift", and the laying on of hands. Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist were part of the early Church and practiced by the Apostles.

Pentecost started an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit in the Church and that prayer for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit continues to this day, worldwide, in the Sacrament of Confirmation.