Confirmation allows us to experience a ‘personal Pentecost’ that leads to new life in the Spirit
By Father Randy Stice
In his Advent column, Bishop Mark Beckman shared that his prayer for our diocese is for “a new springtime of Pentecost,” and that one of his priorities for the coming years is “a special emphasis on youth and young adults, as we must entrust the light of Christ faithfully to the next generation.” Over the next few months, Bishop Beckman will be celebrating the sacrament of confirmation at parishes throughout the diocese, the sacrament that unites the baptized more completely to the Church and enriches them “with a special strength of the Holy Spirit,” enabling them “as true witnesses of Christ … to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.”1 In the sacrament of confirmation, Bishop Beckman’s prayer for a new Pentecost and his emphasis on faithfully entrusting Christ’s light to the next generation are realized in a distinct way.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes Pentecost as the event when “the Holy Spirit was manifested, given, and communicated as a divine Person to the Church…the Church celebrates the memory of the Pentecost as the beginning of the new ‘age of the Church,’ when Christ lives and acts in and with His Church … through the liturgy of His Church, ‘until He comes again.’”2 The Order of Confirmation makes frequent reference to the relationship between confirmation and Pentecost, beginning with a reference to the passage in the Letter to the Hebrews about the laying on of hands (6:2). “This laying on of hands is rightly recognized by Catholic tradition as the beginning of the sacrament of confirmation, which in a certain way perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the Church.”3 This is the essential relationship—the grace of Pentecost is perpetuated in confirmation.
The Introduction to the Rite explains confirmation in reference to Pentecost. “Those who have been baptized continue on the path of Christian initiation through the sacrament of confirmation, by which they receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord sent upon the Apostles at Pentecost.”4 The Catechism reiterates this point: “It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of confirmation is the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.”5
Pentecost is also the reason why the bishop is the normal minister of confirmation—“so that there will be a clearer reference to the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. For after the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, they themselves transmitted the Spirit to the faithful through the laying on of hands.”6 The model homily in the rite expands on this point. “The Apostles, who had received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost in fulfillment of the Lord’s promise, had power to complete the work of baptism by the giving of the Holy Spirit, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. When St. Paul had laid his hands on certain people who had been baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. The bishops, as successors of the Apostles, possess the same power.”7
The rite of confirmation includes the renewal of baptismal promises, an affirmation of the basic beliefs of our faith in the form of question and response. The question about the Holy Spirit speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit as first given at Pentecost: “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who today through the sacrament of confirmation is given to you in a special way just as He was given to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost?”8 The candidates’ assent expresses their desire to receive the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.
Confirmation is an important step in faithfully entrusting the light of Christ to the next generation. It deepens our relationship with the Most Holy Trinity by enriching us with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, conforming us more closely to the Son, uniting us more perfectly to His body, the Church, and drawing us more deeply into the building up of His kingdom. At the same time, it makes us more fully who God intended each of us to be from eternity (Ephesians 1:4). And becoming our true selves does not mean turning in on our own selfish wants and desires but rather opening ourselves to others, becoming men and women “for others,” “just as Christ is ‘the man for others.’”9
The essence of Pentecost, wrote Bishop Beckman, is summed up in a quote from St. John Paul II in 1982: “Behold, dear friends, the charge I entrust to you today: be disciples and witnesses of the Gospel, so that the Gospel may be the good seed of God’s Kingdom, the civilization of love.” Confirmation equips us to do this by perpetuating “the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.”10 When we receive the sacrament of confirmation, we experience a “personal Pentecost” that leads us “into the new life in the Holy Spirit, which is the true life of the Church.”11
1 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) no. 1285
2 CCC glossary
3 Apostolic Constitution on the Sacrament of Confirmation, Paul VI, 1971
4 Order of Confirmation (OC) no. 1
5 CCC no. 1302
6 OC no. 7
7 OC no. 22
8 OC no. 23
9 Dominus Iesu, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2000, no. 19
10 CCC no. 1302
11 Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy, second revised and expanded edition (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), 75
Father Randy Stice is director of the diocesan Office of Worship and Liturgy. He can be reached at frrandy@dioknox.org.
