The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 178: Who Receives Confirmation (2024)

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

We continue our examination of the sacrament of Confirmation, specifically both who should receive Confirmation and who can act as the minister of the sacrament. Fr. Mike reiterates that every baptized person, not yet confirmed, should receive the sacrament of Confirmation. Without Confirmation, Christian initiation remains incomplete. He also emphasizes the importance of choosing someone who can help you grow in the Faith as a sponsor. Fr. Mike concludes with an examination of who the minister of Confirmation is, and how its minister ties us to the apostolic succession. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1306-1314. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 178. We are reading paragraphs 1306 to 1314. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism,

which includes the Foundations of Faith approach. But you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in your reading plan by visiting, guess what? Ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And you can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates daily notifications today

Is day 178 you guys were coming in we're coming in hot on halfway through this whole year. You've got nice work As I said, we're almost at a half a year in which is pretty remarkable Considering all things and considering what I don't know Maybe the fact that it can be difficult at times to get to the Catechism. It's not as we've talked about so many times months ago. It is not like the Bible in the sense that there's that story we're following, but there are so many incredible gifts that the Church has given to us in this sacrament or sacrament confirmation. Of course, we're talking about today, but in the Catechism, it's so today what we're talking about.

Yesterday we looked at the effects of confirmation. I gushed, I know, I'm sorry, I apologize. But I guess that's one of those sorry not sorry phrases because it's amazing and also we're convicted by the fact that we need to go out. But the new question today is who can receive this sacrament and who is the minister of confirmation? So who can receive the sacrament?

You can say it really, really briefly. Paragraph 1306 says it really briefly every baptized person Not yet confirmed can and should receive the sacrament of confirmation. So kind of straightforward, but we're gonna also talk about What is it to have the age of discretion? What is it to delay in the West we kind of delay the sacrament of confirmation in the East? It's combined with baptism and First Holy Communion I'll talk about that today as well as the fact that the minister of confirmation, the ordinary minister, or the original minister

of confirmation is the bishop. We're talking about that today. Not only who can receive the sacrament, but who can administer the sacrament to those receiving it. So let's say a prayer as we kind of conclude, almost conclude this section on the sacrament of confirmation. Father in heaven, we call upon your name and we give you praise and glory.

In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we ask you to please receive our thanks, receive our praise. Thank you so much for this day. Thank you for bringing us to this day, Lord God. We've done nothing to deserve life. We've done nothing to deserve this day. And yet here you are once again pouring out your goodness,

pouring out your gifts upon each and every one of us as we draw breath, Lord God, every breath. Let every breath be a prayer of praise. Let every breath be a prayer of thanksgiving to you. Let every heartbeat in our chests, Lord God. Let it be for your glory. And a constant reminder, how many times constant reminder of how good you are. Let every heartbeat just declare and proclaim your goodness.

May you be praised and glorified. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Today we are reading paragraphs 1306 to 13, because it's Day 178. Who can receive this sacrament? Every baptized person not yet confirmed can and should receive the sacrament of confirmation. Since Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist form a unity, it follows that the faithful

are obliged to receive this sacrament at the appropriate time, for without Confirmation and Eucharist, Baptism is certainly valid and efficacious, but Christian initiation remains incomplete. For centuries, Latin custom has indicated the age of discretion as the reference point for receiving confirmation, but in danger of death, children should be confirmed even if they have not yet attained the age of discretion. Although confirmation is sometimes called the sacrament of Christian maturity, we must not confuse adult faith with the adult age of natural growth, nor forget that the baptismal grace is a grace of free, unmerited election and does not need

ratification to become effective. St. Thomas reminds us of this. Age of body does not determine age of soul. Even in childhood, man can attain spiritual maturity, as the Book of Wisdom says, for old age is not honored for a length of time or measured by number of years. Many children, through the strength of the Holy Spirit they have received, have bravely fought for Christ even to the shedding of their blood. Preparation for confirmation should aim at leading the Christian toward a more intimate union with Christ and a more lively familiarity with the Holy Spirit – his actions, his gifts, his biddings – in order to be more capable of assuming the apostolic responsibilities of Christian life.

To this end, Catechesis for Confirmation should strike to awaken a sense of belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ, the Universal Church as well as the parish community. The latter bears special responsibility for the preparation of confirmands. To receive confirmation, one must be in a state of grace. One should receive the sacrament of penance in order to be cleansed for the gift of the Holy Spirit. More intense prayer should prepare one to receive the strength and graces of the Holy Spirit with docility and readiness to act. Candidates for confirmation as for baptism

fittingly seek the spiritual help of a sponsor. To emphasize the unity of the two sacraments, it is appropriate that this be one of the baptismal godparents. The Minister of Confirmation. The original minister of confirmation is the bishop. In the East, ordinarily the priest who baptizes also immediately confers confirmation in one and the same celebration, but he does so with sacred chrism consecrated by the patriarch

or the bishop, thus expressing the apostolic unity of the Church whose bonds are strengthened by the sacrament of confirmation. In the Latin Church, the same discipline applies to the baptism of adults, or to the reception into full communion with the Church of a person baptized in another Christian community that does not have valid confirmation. In the Latin Rite, the ordinary minister of confirmation to priests, although it is fitting that he confer it himself, mindful that the celebration of confirmation has been temporally separated from baptism for this reason. Bishops are the successors of the apostles. They have received the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders.

The administration of this sacrament by them demonstrates clearly that its effect is to unite those who receive it more closely to the Church, to her apostolic origins, and to her mission of bearing witness to Christ. If a Christian is in danger of death, any priest can give him confirmation. Indeed, the Church desires that none of her children, even the youngest, should depart this world without having been perfected by the Holy Spirit with the gift of Christ's fullness. Okay, there we are, day 178, paragraph 1306 to 1314, to who can receive this sacrament and who is the minister of this sacrament. As it said so clearly at the very beginning, who can receive this sacrament?

Every baptized person, not yet confirmed. Not only can, but also should receive the sacrament of confirmation. So yes, it highlights us in paragraph 1306 that baptism is certainly valid, it's certainly efficacious, but without Holy Eucharist and without confirmation, the initiation remains incomplete. And so, as you know, we've said this in the past, we were reminded of it today, the Latin custom has been to separate these three sacraments. So baptism right away, a lot of times with infants. Holy communion in the age of reason

and same thing with confirmation, in that age of discretion is talked about. Where basically you have a person, an individual, who can tell the difference between, here's ordinary bread and here's the Eucharist. Here's something new that's happening. This is sacrament of confirmation happening. So there's this age of discretion.

And I think this is really remarkable Well, it's worth noting paragraph 1308 says although confirmation is sometimes called the sacrament of Christian maturity We must not confuse adult faith with the adult age of natural growth Nor forget that the baptismal grace is a grace of free unmerited election and does not need ratification to become effective and that's That is really important for us, because again, as we mentioned yesterday, about some of those gifts, those effects of confirmation,

it renders our bond with the church more perfect. Yes, so sacrament of Christian maturity can be called that because you're fully initiated. We can't just say that, oh, if a person's 15 versus person is 21 versus a person is eight, that really makes a difference why because grace is a grace of free unmerited election right baptismal grace is a grace of free unmerited election and does not need

ratification to become effective and yet there is a preparation that's necessary and and the preparation for confirmation should aim it says in 1309 should aim at leading the Christian toward a more intimate union with Christ and more lively familiarity with the Holy Spirit and the thing the reason why I'm going through these these aspects on a day like today is because I think a lot of the people who are listening you've been confirmed and the question we get to ask ourselves is is that how I was prepared like is that what my Experience is of this sacrament of confirmation and not because you know We're all in charge and we can just kind of make all these like that. We can you change things

but because if my experience wasn't Increasingly lively familiarity with the Holy Spirit with the Holy Spirit's actions with the Holy Spirit's gifts with the Holy Spirit's promptings or biddings Right if that wasn't that well That's what was supposed to have happened. You can still do that now Is that make sense? and so the reason why I really like to emphasize this this unity of Confirmation baptism holy eucharist and this preparation for confirmation is if you didn't get that then you're getting it now, which is really really good Really really good news and so goes on to say in order to be more capable of assuming the apostolic responsibilities of Christian life the apostolic

responsibilities of Christian life That sense of a camp being sent the church actually is sending me out. Remember we said yesterday, as a quasi ex officio, as it were official representative of the church. Now, here's another thing that needs to be in place. Paragraph 13.10 said, "'To receive confirmation, "'one must be in a state of grace.'" And so we always, you know,

I put on confirmation retreats for the youth in our diocese for the last 18 years. I've been hosting confirmation retreats for them. And so we always have the sacrament of reconciliation, sacrament of penance that is very present and we invite our students, we try to prepare them as best we can. If I'm aware of mortal sin, right? A sin that takes me out of that right relationship

with the Lord. If I am conscious of mortal sin exists, then I'm not receiving the full graces of the sacrament of confirmation. And so again, this could be any one of us. If it's been like, wow, it's been since second grade since I went to confession, but I was confirmed. Okay, but I wanna receive those graces of confirmation,

go to confession, because that would in many ways unleash those, if you say like, for lack of a better phrase, unleash the graces of that sacrament. In fact, it says this, one should receive the sacrament of penance in order to be cleansed for the gift of the Holy Spirit. It goes on, more intense prayer should prepare one

to receive the strength and graces of the Holy Spirit with the facility and readiness to act. Because again, the core of this is, this is a sacrament of commission right the sacrament of like go out into the world and bring the good news bring the Holy Spirit that you received at baptism this your Holy Spirit you received at confirmation so that the world can know who Jesus Christ is to that end where we should have a fitting spiritual sponsor we should have

a spiritual sponsor and that could be your God parent. That would be great, but it ought to be someone who can actually help you, can actually help you grow. I do not, I am not an advocate of the idea of choosing a God parent because, well, we're related or choosing a confirmation sponsor because, well, you know, we chose everyone else. We need to choose this person. That is not the case. That is the case if confirmation and baptism don't do anything, then yeah, totally, just choose whoever, you know, it's an honorary title. But if confirmation and baptism are these very efficacious and incredible calls on a

person's life that transform their life and set them on the track of discipleship and in some ways apostleship, right, being sent out into the world, then their sponsor should be someone who actually helps them do that. And so just keep that in mind, that the person you choose for a godparent, person you choose for a sponsor,

it should be actually someone who can help you grow, someone who can actually help you move forward. Lastly, the original minister of confirmation is the bishop, the one who has, you know, the successor of the Apostles apostolic unity that they've received the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders and so when they administer the sacrament, it demonstrates clearly that one of the effects of confirmation is to unite those who receive it more closely to the church to her apostolic origins And to her mission of bearing witness to Christ at the same time the bishop can he can delegate right?

he can grant the faculty of administering confirmation to his priests and As it says in 1314 if a Christian is in danger of death any priests can give him confirmation Why because the church desires that none of her children even the youngest should depart this world without having been perfected But the Holy Spirit with the gift of Christ's fullness and that's that's a one of the one of the cases when you go back to the gift of the sacraments almost across the board in Danger of death the church basically says all the grace whatever you want I tell me almost like every sacrament virtue I'm you know

There's limits here but almost every sacrament that it can help someone, heal someone, that can help them take the next step into eternity is accessible to all in danger of death. Because why? Because the church desires that no one, no one is ever deprived of the graces of God's sacraments in the hour of need. And so that's kind of a,

that's just a really powerful, powerful thing. You guys, today was what a crazy, it seems crazy day. Yesterday was this day of like the effects of confirmation. So clear, so powerful, so incredible. And who can receive the sacrament of confirmation? Basically anybody, anybody who has been baptized, but has not received the sacrament of confirmation can and should receive the sacrament of confirmation. And so again, if you've already received confirmation and you didn't get prepared, well, post-prepare yourself and post-pair yourself.

And if you are still seeking the sacrament of confirmation, just know that the goal of that preparation is to awaken yourself to those gifts of the Holy Spirit, the biddings, the promptings of the Holy Spirit, to open yourself to that, what it is to be even more perfectly united to the Church in our apostolic unity. And today, we recognize this unity. We recognize this unity, of course, in the body of the Church,

in the visible Church. We also recognize this unity in the fact that we pray for each other and we need each other. And so, please know that I am inviting you to pray for each other and we need each other. And so please know that I'm inviting you to pray for each other. I am praying for you and please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.