I attend an informal doctrine class, and today was our "first day" back after the summer. Today the class was on the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.
Sometimes it seems to me that Confirmation is almost a "forgotten" sacrament. For myself, I feel like I don't know enough about it. I was confirmed in the eighth grade, and our preparation consisted of a year and a half of a very, very elderly Benedictine nun beginning each class with either "What...is...a sacrament?" or "Time.... is running out!" (meaning, Confirmation is coming soon and we still haven't written our letters to the bishop!) Sister was a good and kind nun, and perhaps her intercession helped draw me back to the Church. But looking back on it, I wonder if poor Sister was perhaps a little unprepared for the challenges of coming out of retirement and teaching a group of spoiled, uncatechized suburban middle schoolers. Those two phrases are the only things I remember from Confirmation prep. I remember thinking, "I know this is important, but I don't really know what this means."
I get the impression that every diocese seems to approach Confirmation a little differently. Some kids are confirmed in junior high, others not until their late teens. Some kids prepare for a year, some kids for three. It seems like every year the kids have more and more service hours to complete. And every year you hear about a kid or two who does not want to receive the Sacrament.
I wonder if there's something amiss with the way we're approaching Confirmation in this country. (I'm speaking primarily of Confirmation of children who were baptized as infants or little children and raised in the Faith.) It seems like a lot of people approach it as "the time you make your adult committment to Christ." Well, what does that mean? To me, that kind of approach seems to on some level belittle the actions of Baptism, and seems to be heavily influenced by the idea of the bar mitzvah or the way some Protestant churches approach Baptism. Is that why some kids resist Confirmation -- because they are doubting, and they don't want to commit themselves? (And yet how many of those same kids are receiving Holy Communion on Sundays?) Would they desire the sacrament if there was more emphasis on the very real graces of the sacrament, that it was the beginning of a lifelong journey instead of Signing on the Dotted Line for Life?
Then of course there's some people's attitude of "Confirmation means the end of CCD." Perhaps this is why some dioceses choose to delay Confirmation until later in the high school years -- to keep the kids in class longer. But doesn't that just send a hidden message -- "Yes, religious ed is a drag, so we're going to force you to go?" Meanwhile, the kids are deprived of the gifts of the sacrament all through their teen years, at a time when they could really, really use the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes it seems like there's a punch card mentality in the way we approach the Christian life in this country: You're born, you get your little Catholic card and you get the Baptism punch. You roll along the conveyor belt and pretty soon you join the herd of kids your age. Penance and First Holy Communion -- punch punch. Confirmation -- punch. Then the tracks diverge -- a few get the Holy Orders punch; most of the other folks get the Matrimony punch. Finally the conveyor belts converge again and you get your Anointing punch before you die. (This punch card gets clipped to your time card that you punch at Mass, by the way -- the "how late can I be for it to still count" time card. So you show up at Mass and receive Communion, and then you slide out early -- you've punched your Mass card for the week.) Hatched, matched, and dispatched.
I apologize for the Eeyore tone, but sometimes parish life seems organized on the model of a feedlot or a school cafeteria instead of a Heavenly Banquet. Don't kneel when you receive Communion, or take too long to bow -- it'll clog up the line! Time for Confirmation? Here's your checklist: go to 80% of your classes, do 15 hours of service, go to the retreat, write the letter to the Bishop, and choose a saint's name. (Never mind that many of these kids have never even seen a book of the Lives of the Saints, have no idea what's going on at Holy Communion, and have not been to Confession since their first one...)
And I do know these requirements are necessary, especially in an age when we have parishes serving more than 30,000 souls! This whole post probably says more about my own personal hang-ups, lousy catechesis and poor understanding of the Sacrament of Confirmation than anything else. But it's also coming out of my own experience. I've known some of those kids who have come close to refusing Confirmation because they weren't sure they wanted to commit themselves as being Catholic. I've known kids -- and adults -- who have dropped out of the Church because they hated the impersonal feedlot mentality -- "nobody believes this stuff anyway." Since they had never been taught about the Reality of the Mystical Body of Christ, they saw no reason to stay. How many Protestants have been scandalized by that same punch-card, feedlot atmosphere?
I know myself I have to constantly struggle against the idea that God is a big, indifferent Boss in the sky, kind of the principal of a very large high school, interested in His people's welfare in a general way, but uninvolved in their day-to-day lives unless they do something really out of the ordinary to bring themselves to His attention. The principal knows his delinquents and his most brilliant honor students; God knows the notorious sinners and the most virtuous saints, but the rest are just faces in the crowd. The high school student checks off the required classes, makes the required GPA, and heads across the stage when it's all over to shake the principal's hand for the first and last time (as the vice-principal misprounounces the graduate's name at the microphone.)
Surely I'm not the only one who's felt this way. In this impersonal world, how many more would-be confirmandi are parroting the line about we are God's gathered community, the sheep of his flock, etc, but in their heart of hearts percieve God as no more interested in them as individuals than their school principals?
What if Confirmation prep included more practical instruction on how to develop in the devotional and spiritual life? How about instruction in meditation or mental prayer, with follow up? Perhaps set up a book table after class, so the kids could have the opportunity to pick up some good spiritual reading? Maybe some programs out there already do this; all I know is I went through 12 years of CCD, but never heard of mental prayer until I was 30! The only instruction I got in prayer was a rosary and a couple of leaflets.
I'm not sure that shoving the kids (or the grown-ups) into small groups and commanding them to "share their faith journeys" is the answer, either. I've been shoved into those groups in both high school and college, and I hated them. Forced intimacy is not intimacy at all.
There is such a thirst out there for sound doctrine and good instruction. There is so much need. It's not the thirst of a herd, though, it's the thirst of one soul at a time.
