Pentecost Sunday June 5, 2022
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Do we really understand what that means? We are sent by Jesus in the same way the Father sent him. The Son of God didn’t become man… Jesus wasn’t born just to sightsee the world he created. He came with a mission. We aren’t here just to get through life. We have a mission – His mission.
Sure, this command is given specifically to the Apostles, but when the Holy Spirit comes, he comes to all the believers in the upper room. They all began to speak and proclaim. But we weren’t there, right? We haven’t been given this gift. Yet, we have. The Sacrament of Confirmation is not just some incentive to stay in Catechism classes. It’s not a graduation. It is our personal Pentecost. Do we really get that? If you’ve been confirmed already, did you know that then? Have you lived out the power and promise of your confirmation since then?
God is love. The Holy Spirit is God: he is Love. Anything involving the Holy Spirit – like Confirmation – must be rooted in love, which means “to will the good of another.” To “will” something is to make a choice for it, it is to act on your purpose – hence it means a mission. When someone is filled with the Holy Spirit, he both inspires that desire and motivates acting on it. Confirmation is the sacramental way to enter into this reality. To help us all more clearly realize and live out this love, we are going to reflect on the 5 effects of Confirmation and identify how to put them in practice.
The first effect of Confirmation is to be rooted more deeply in our identity as sons and daughters of God the Father. As the Holy Spirit is defined by his relationship to the Father, so receiving him affects our relationship to the Father. In this age of constant identity crisis, we can’t just gloss over this. Do you want to help people who struggle with gender confusion? Midlife crises? Existential uncertainty? Then live out your confirmation and encourage them to do the same!
How? Do the work of really considering who you are. What is your identity rooted in? Where you were born? The language you speak? The sports you like? Your career? Your hobbies? Your relationships to certain people? If I ask you, “who are you,” what is the first thing that comes to mind other than your own name? If anything other than “a son or daughter of God” pops into your mind first, you’ve got work to do. Don’t fret, we all do and this is an ongoing process, but your immediate response is a sign, a manifestation of how you’ve built up your identity so far. So, how do we more firmly root our identity in God?
Pray regularly and read scripture. Do it not as a task, but with the conscious desire to discover yourself in your relationship with God. If you can, fast from anything that has become a false identity for you. If it’s something you can’t fast from, then consciously pray before each encounter: “Holy Spirit, keep me rooted in the Father rather than this.”
The next two effects of Confirmation are closely linked: it unites us more firmly to Jesus Christ and gives us a more complete bond to the Church. Being a son or daughter of God also means we are brothers and sisters of Jesus, the Son, and of each other. In an invisible, but very real way, Confirmation makes both of these bonds stronger. Living this out means what you probably expect: regular prayer and conversation with Jesus Christ, participating at Mass and at communal events in the Church. Psychologically, Confirmation should help you experience a kind of family loyalty to the Church and fellow Catholics. When you hear about Jesus or the Church in conversation or in the news, is there some sense of connection? If not, pray for it in a specific way. Then, look for ways to connect with fellow Catholics. Even better, look for ways to help Catholics feel more connected to your parish.
Confirmation also means an increase in the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit: fear of the lord, piety, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, understanding, and wisdom. Each of these gives you grace to better live out your Catholic faith. Like any gift, you’ve got to use them for them to matter. Like any habit, they require practice to build up. These are not gifts to make you a “nice person” or a “good person,” they are gifts to make you holy, to help you become the saint you’re meant to be. If you don’t see them at work, then consider whether you’re really trying to be holy. Start working towards that, even in tiny ways, and you’ll start to activate these gifts. And as always, pray for them to increase too.
Lastly, Confirmation strengthens us to defend the faith, proclaim the faith, and to endure the cross. A baptized Catholic belongs to the Church. A Confirmed Catholic has a position in the Church, a kind of authority. It makes us sorta ex officio representatives of the Church. This is why you cannot be a godparent without being Confirmed – because a godparent is a public witness of the faith and Confirmation is what empowers us to do that.
As with the other effects of this sacrament, you’ll really see it only when you put it into practice. We all suffer already – so, when you do, invoke the Holy Spirit to unite that trial to the cross and to find strength to bear it well. This is Confirmation at work. Try to proclaim Jesus and his Church. Start with the easy crowd: other Catholics who are at least open to Jesus – how often Catholics don’t talk faith with each other! Work your way up to speaking of Jesus with those who don’t know him. If you really want to step up, try learning another language for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel – give the Spirit a chance to do in you what we see in the disciples at Pentecost.
“As the father has sent me, so I send you.” The world fell with Original Sin. It was divided in the tower of Babel. But that fall has been redeemed by death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The division is overcome by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet we still see sin and division… because it is our mission to bring this redemption to others, to overcome this division by being agents of the Holy Spirit given to us in Confirmation. Let this Sacrament and the Holy Spirit root your identity in God, build up your relationship to Christ and to fellow Catholics, strive for holiness, and bear witness by your perseverance, by your actions, and by your words that you’re not just hanging out. You’re here on a mission… and you’re not alone.