{"id":1306,"date":"2004-06-05T12:58:51","date_gmt":"2004-06-05T17:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/?p=1306"},"modified":"2004-06-05T12:58:51","modified_gmt":"2004-06-05T17:58:51","slug":"an-army-of-chri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2004\/06\/an-army-of-chri\/","title":{"rendered":"An army of Christ of one"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom of Disputations has a sharp post up<\/a>: a rough-draft taxonomy of factions within the Church, based on which Sacrament they reject. He remarks that Confirmation is “rejected by pretty much everyone, since almost no one has any idea what it’s actually for.”
\nWell, I would dispute that<\/i>. I am all for <\/i>Confirmation (even though I’m don’t have a complete understanding of what it’s for. But I do have some idea.) So, does that mean I get my own faction? And if I do, what should I call it?
\nI first blogged about Confirmation in a combination “faith seeking understanding” and “resentful Gen-X rant” post<\/a> last fall. I’ve had the question of Confirmation on my mental back burner ever since. It’s something I want (and need) to study more, both to understand the Sacrament and to grow in understanding of the Holy Spirit and His actions.
\nI was thinking about it again more recently when I started hearing about the “Restored Order of the Sacraments” in the Latin Rite (that is, Confirmation before First Communion instead of adolescence or even later.) I saw it first on a Catholic mother’s message board and then in this post on Fidelis<\/a>.
\nDon’t feel like slogging through the long meandering (recycled) reflection in the extended entry? Here’s the executive summary: I think the Restored Order is a great idea. After the revolution, when I become Liturgist-in-Chief (complete with draconian powers of enforcement), I will implement it from east to west. While I wait for news of my appointment, I’ll be studying up on Confirmation and learning more about the Holy Spirit, and striving to grow in devotion to Him.<\/p>\n


\nBack in September<\/a>, I wrote,<\/p>\n

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?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More recently, on the Mothering with Grace message board, a mom ran into the Restored Order for the first time and expressed doubt about it, seeing it as some kind of newfangled “Spirit of Vatican II” innovation:
\nMy response:<\/p>\n

My grandmother was confirmed when she was six or seven, on her First Communion day, but I don’t know which Sacrament was given first. This would have been in the mid to late 1920’s in New York.
\nI believe that in the Eastern Catholic Churches (e.g., the Byzantine Church) they do confirm infants immediately after their Baptism. (In these Churches, infants and little children also receive Communion.)
\nI did a little searching and I’m finding a lot that suggests that this is a good idea. I had been thinking for a while myself that perhaps it’s not such a bad thing to confirm earlier, that this waiting until the kids have a driver’s license deprives them of the gifts of the Holy Spirit at the time they need them the most, that Confirmation was getting treated like a bar mitzvah or something, and that’s not what it is.
\nFrom the Catechism<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1306 <\/b>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.
\n1307<\/b> The Latin tradition gives “the age of discretion” as the reference point for receiving Confirmation. But in danger of death children should be confirmed even if they have
\nnot yet attained the age of discretion.
\n1308<\/b> Although Confirmation is sometimes called he “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:
\n
\nAge 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 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.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From a Q&A by a priest<\/a>:<\/p>\n

From a theological standpoint the sacrament of confirmation should ideally precede first Communion, and indeed all official documents, from canon law to the Catechism, place confirmation before the Eucharist.
\nIn a very real way, participation in the Eucharistic celebration is only fully complete after having received the sacrament of confirmation.
\nThe sacramental character of the latter, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, is a further participation in Christ’s priesthood and a spiritual power ordained to certain sacred actions with the difference that in baptism the Christian receives the power of testifying his faith by receiving the other sacraments whereas in confirmation he receives the power of publicly confessing his faith (“Summa Theologiae” III q 63 a. 3; q 72 a. 5-6).
\nAlthough the Church shows a clear preference for having confirmation precede first Communion — and this was a fairly common practice even up to recent times as first Communion was often received at a later age — it does permit the delay for solid pastoral reasons.
\nIf this delay is extended for a long period it can create a confusion regarding the exact nature of the sacrament. This may lead us to forget the essential point that we are dealing primarily with a sacrament, that is, a source of grace, and only secondarily a sign of coming of age or a taking up of adult responsibilities.
\nThus with confirmation, as St. Thomas said, we “receive a power of testifying the faith.” And the Council of Florence states that “it gives us 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 to be never ashamed of the Cross” (see Catechism, No. 1302).
\nIt is in this sense that confirmation is the sacrament of Christian maturity, not so much a sign that one has already reached maturity, as the gift of grace to help one mature as a Christian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few years ago, an 11 year old girl in New York (homeschooled!) asked for Confirmation but was refused, as the Diocese policy was that the age of Confirmation was the sophomore year of high school (which raises the question — if you flunk math and have to repeat a grade, does that mean you have to wait to be Confirmed?) Anyway, her parents appealed to Rome, and the Congregation of Divine Worship ruled in the girl’s favor; in their decision<\/a> they noted, “Indeed, the longer the conferral of the Sacrament is delayed after the age of reason, the greater will be the number of candidates who are prepared for its reception but are deprived of its grace for a considerable period of time.”<\/b>
\n…The Catechism of Pope Pius X recommends the age of seven for the reception of Confirmation.<\/a> Apparently confirmation before FHC was also retained in Spanish-speaking countries.<\/a> Some historians point out that children used to receive Confirmation and FHC later, like at age ten or twelve; when St Pius X recommended that First Holy Communion come earlier, many places moved FHC to an earlier age but didn’t move Confirmation.<\/a> So having Confirmation after FHC is not necessarily an old practice; it may have gotten started fairly recently.
\nSome old practices get started for reasons of expediency. Ever hear that old story about the newly married man watching his bride making a pot roast? She cuts the ends off the roast and puts it in the pan. He asks, “Why did you cut the ends off?” and she says, “Well, that’s how my mom taught me to make the pot roast.” So he asks her mom and she says the same thing. Finally Thanksgiving rolls around and he asks Grandma, “So why do you cut the ends off the pot roast?” Grandma laughs and says, “When my daughter was growing up I only had a little pot. I had to cut the ends off to make it fit.”
\nSame thing with Confirmation. I would bet that a big part of the reason Confirmation started going later in this country is because of the scheduling difficulties for the bishops. And another big reason is the view of Confirmation as a kind of “graduation” or Catholic bar-mitzvah, or like the idea some Protestants have of baptism (“adult commitment to Christ”) They are keeping Confirmation back as a way to keep the kids in CCD longer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom of Disputations has a sharp post up: a rough-draft taxonomy of factions within the Church, based on which Sacrament they reject. He remarks that Confirmation is “rejected by pretty much everyone, since almost no one has any idea what it’s actually for.” Well, I would dispute that. I am all for Confirmation (even though… Continue reading An army of Christ of one<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catechesis","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}