Confirmation

Confirmation is the sacrament that gives the baptized the fullness of the Holy Spirit, as the apostles received it at Pentecost. At baptism, the Christian is reborn as a child of God; at confirmation, he receives the Spirit in fullness, which strengthens him in this new life and clothes him with the force to bear witness to his faith.

The completion of Christian initiation

Three sacraments bring one into the Christian life and carry it to its fullness: baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist. Baptism gives rebirth to the life of God; confirmation strengthens in it and gives the Spirit in fullness; the Eucharist nourishes with the flesh of Christ. Confirmation thus perfects the grace received at baptism.

The gift of the Spirit in fullness

At baptism, the Holy Spirit already makes the Christian a child of God and dwells in him. Confirmation gives him this same Spirit in fullness, in the manner of Pentecost, where fearful disciples were transformed into intrepid witnesses. On that day, the Spirit descended on the apostles and filled them. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:4 The apostles then communicated this gift by the imposition of hands. In Samaria, men already baptized had not yet received the Spirit in this way: Peter and John came to lay their hands on them, and they received him. “Then they laid their hands upon them: and they received the Holy Ghost.” Acts 8:17 This gesture, distinct from baptism and performed by the apostles, is the origin of confirmation.

The gifts of the Spirit

The seven gifts of the Spirit, wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of God, accompany grace and are already received at baptism. By giving them in fullness, confirmation increases and strengthens them, making the Christian more docile to his action. Isaiah announced them in describing the Messiah on whom the Spirit rests. “And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 11:2 The prophet names six gifts; the Church counts seven, for the Greek and then Latin tradition, rendering twice the “fear” that the following verse repeats, distinguished piety from fear.

The rite and the seal

The matter of confirmation is the holy chrism, a perfumed oil consecrated by the bishop, with which the anointing is traced on the forehead of the confirmed; the form is the word said at the same time: “Be sealed with the Holy Spirit, the gift of God.” Chrism, Christ and Christian all derive from the same Greek verb chriō (χρίω), “to anoint”: marked with this oil, the confirmed is configured to Christ, the Anointed One, and bears more fully the name of Christian. Every baptized person not yet confirmed is called to receive this sacrament; the Latin Church confers it ordinarily at the age of reason, after a preparation, while the Eastern Churches give it immediately after baptism. The bishop, successor of the apostles, is its ordinary minister, sign of the bond that unites the confirmed to the whole Church; a priest may also confer it, when he baptizes an adult, or upon a member of the faithful in danger of death, so that none may leave this world deprived of the sacrament. Like baptism, this sacrament imprints in the soul a spiritual and definitive seal: it is received only once. “Who also hath sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts.” 2 Corinthians 1:22

The effects of the sacrament

Confirmation produces lasting effects in the soul. It roots the confirmed more deeply in the divine filiation received at baptism: by the Spirit given in fullness, he cries out to God as to his Father. “You received a Spirit of adoption, by which we cry: Abba, Father!” Romans 8:15 By its seal it configures him to Christ and binds him more firmly to the Church. All these effects converge towards the one most proper to confirmation, the force to bear witness.

The force to bear witness

Confirmation produces in the baptized what Pentecost produced in the apostles. Already disciples of Christ, they received that day the force to go out and proclaim the Gospel before all, without fear. In the same way, the confirmed is clothed with the force of the Spirit to confess his faith, to announce it and to defend it, and to become a witness of Christ before the world. Christ had promised it to his apostles before ascending to heaven. “you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me.” Acts 1:8