Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created.
And You shall renew the face of the earth.
Tonight is Confirmation for our high school sophomore's at my beloved parish. The bishop is coming, there will be many priests, and 36 young people parading in to the front of the church along with their sponsors. It is a beautiful show . . . I mean liturgy. That's right, it's a sacrament isn't it? I keep losing sight of that in the midst of the chaos. It is not a very well-understood sacrament in the grand scheme of sacraments. While the other six are properly understood as doorways into greater participation in the Church, this one seems to be understood as an escape from participation in the Church. It's like a religious education graduation ceremony.
Nevertheless, it is a beautiful moment in the lives of these young people and I, by association, get to participate in this beauty. One more reason why I love my work with the church.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
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And I;m glad you got to participate in it. It was a wonderful night, was it not?
ReplyDeleteI really hate the image that this is a graduation from religious ed, and to some, a graduation from the Church. We really need to work on the image of the program.
Thanks for being there. Thanks for ALWAYS being there! :)