Cathal BarryThe Church teaches that every baptised person not yet confirmed can and should receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, writes Cathal Barry
It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the Sacrament of Confirmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
From this fact, the Church teaches that Confirmation brings an “increase and deepening” of baptismal grace.
The Catechism states:
- It roots the confirmand “more deeply” in the divine filiation;
- it unites the person “more firmly” to Christ;
- it “increases the gifts” of the Holy Spirit in the confirmand;
- it renders the person’s bond with the Church “more perfect”;
- it gives the confirmand a special strength of the Holy Spirit to “spread and defend the Faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly and never to be ashamed of the cross”.
Recall then, the Catechism directs, “that you have received the spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of holy fear in God’s presence”.
“Guard what you have received. God the Father has marked you with his sign; Christ the Lord has confirmed you and has placed his pledge, the Spirit, in your hearts,” the key teaching document says.
Like Baptism which it “completes”, the Catechism notes that Confirmation is given only once, for it “imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark”, the “character”, which is “the sign that Jesus Christ has marked a Christian with the seal of his Spirit by clothing him with power from on high so that he may be his witness”.
This “character” perfects the common priesthood of the faithful, received in Baptism, and “the confirmed person receives the power to profess faith in Christ publicly and as it were officially (quasi Ex officio)”.
The Church teaches that every baptised 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”.
Although Confirmation is sometimes called the “sacrament of Christian maturity”, the Church warns not to confuse adult faith with the adult age of natural growth, nor to forget that the baptismal grace is a grace of free, unmerited election and does not need “ratification” to become effective.