SAN DIEGO — Being confirmed was a grace-filled moment for Hope Clark, and she’s still feeling those graces a year later.
Clark, 16, received the sacrament of confirmation last spring at Santa Sophia Parish in Spring Valley.
Years earlier, she had been told that, if she requested divine help with a specific grace right before confirmation, it would be granted by the Holy Spirit. When the big day arrived, she was ready.
“I knew exactly what I wanted … a release of anxiety and fear of what’s going to happen in the future,” Clark said.
About a month after her confirmation, Clark realized that she hadn’t experienced any anxious thoughts about the future during the intervening weeks. This continued for a few more months. Though anxious thoughts eventually returned, she discovered that they were easier to dispel.
“If I would start praying again, then that would all go away, and I’d be totally fine,” she said.
But that’s not all. Clark also credits the sacramental grace with another positive trend. Over the past year, she has found herself gravitating toward those friends who help her grow in her faith and caring less how she is perceived by those who don’t.
“I feel like I can resist temptation a little bit better,” she said.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, confirmation is “necessary for the completion of baptismal grace” and, through it, the baptized are “more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit” (Paragraph 1285).
About 3,835 local Catholics, mostly teenagers, will soon have the opportunity to share Clark’s experience when they are confirmed in the next two months. This is in addition to approximately 1,600 catechumens and candidates who went through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) process and received their sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil.
In the Diocese of San Diego, confirmation season has begun in earnest. From late April through late June, Bishop Michael Pham, who is serving as diocesan administrator until the installation of the diocese’s next bishop, and Auxiliary Bishops Ramon Bejarano and Felipe Pulido will travel extensively throughout the 8,852-square-mile diocese to confer the sacrament.
Collectively, the three bishops will celebrate 84 separate confirmation Masses this spring, beginning on April 24, with Bishop Pulido at Most Precious Blood Church in Chula Vista, and concluding on June 21, with Bishop Pham at St. Catherine Laboure Parish in Clairemont.
Two parishes have so many confirmation candidates – St. Mark Parish in San Marcos with 200 and St. Mary Parish in Escondido with 234 – that they will have two confirmation Masses each. Other parishes with smaller numbers will be coming together for the same Mass; these include St. Didacus and St. John the Evangelist (San Diego) parishes on May 6, St. Joseph Cathedral and Our Lady of Refuge parishes on May 13; and Our Lady of the Rosary, St. Agnes and St. Vincent de Paul parishes on May 17.
For the bishops, two months of confirmations means a grueling schedule.
Consider the case of Bishop Bejarano: On a single day, May 17, he will celebrate separate confirmation liturgies at three parishes (Corpus Christi, Bonita; Holy Family, Linda Vista; and St. Gabriel, Poway).
“It is very demanding for (the bishops) – the distance, the driving, and several a day sometimes,” acknowledged Noreen McInnes, director of the diocesan Office for Liturgy and Spirituality. “However, I think there’s great joy for them to see young people in our diocese receiving sacraments, and (that) they’re able to minister to them.”
On the flip side, the bishops’ presence is also meaningful to the teens.
McInnes recalled what “a big, important moment” it was for her teenage self when her bishop visited her parish to confirm her. And among contemporary teens, she said, “there’s still some of that sense of awe and importance and what a gift it is.”
“I felt obviously strengthened by God,” Katherine Nix, a 16-year-old Santa Sophia parishioner, said of the effects of receiving the sacrament, “but I also realized that my confirmation was one of the first steps in my faith journey.”
As her confirmation saint, Nix chose St. Therese of Lisieux, famous for her “Little Way,” a path to holiness that focuses on doing ordinary things with great love. Nix has taken inspiration from the saint’s example: not feeling required to accomplish “some crazy big deed,” but able to focus on “seemingly little things” and, in doing so, being able “start taking small steps to bring God’s kingdom here to Earth.”
Sixteen-year-old Rose Staples, also of Santa Sophia Parish, recalled being “a little worried” about the prospect of attending confirmation classes.
“I’ve been homeschooled my whole life, so going to a class was alien to me,” she said.
But since then, she’s seen the positive effects, describing the classes as “life-changing.”
“I grew closer to God after those classes, and the Holy Spirit has empowered me to do some great things now,” said Staples. “I feel more adult than I did before.”
“I feel like I’ve been gifted more patience, with the Holy Spirit working through me now, and I feel like I can do a lot of things easier now than I did before,” she said. “It’s strange … but it’s not even really a ‘feeling’; it’s just something I ‘know’ happened.”
Joshua Garcia-Pederson, 17, credits confirmation with sparking “a positive shift in my spiritual strength.”
“Looking over this past year,” the Santa Sophia parishioner said, “I view this sacrament as my covenant with God to keep following Him, as my life progresses and I gain more freedom to choose between what I want and don’t want to be a part of.”
Before confirmation, he “wasn’t very inspired to go to Mass often” because he “didn’t really think it mattered much.”
“I now do my best to go to Mass every Sunday,” said Garcia-Pederson, “and my parents, who aren’t super religious, are also getting into going to Mass every Sunday.”
Alexis Rosas, 17, was confirmed last year at Corpus Christi Parish.
When it came to attending the mandatory two years of classes, she initially saw it as “an obligation” set for her by her parents.
However, as those classes went on, she felt her faith deepen and found the desire to go further, choosing to attend Lenten missions and other events.
Rosas even decided to continue her connection with her parish’s confirmation program by serving as a “Young Apostle” this year, a role that involves assisting the confirmation class instructors and serving as “a bridge” between them and the students.
She said that confirmation has been “definitely one of the biggest milestones” in her life. Through it, she said, “I have found a greater interest in Mass and I have become more intentional with my prayers.”
Her fellow parishioner, 16-year-old Alyssa Abalos, is also serving as a “Young Apostle.” She was inspired to become one after her experience at a retreat during her second year of confirmation preparation.
“I realized that a life without God felt like I was missing someone,” she said. “So, I wanted to teach the confirmation students that God truly loves you for who you are.”
Abalos said that, since being confirmed, she has relied on God for strength in difficult moments.
“I try to turn to God and Church,” she said, “because it makes me feel like everything is going to be alright.”
What is confirmation?
Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.
Along with baptism and the Eucharist, it is numbered among the three “sacraments of Christian initiation.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that confirmation “brings an increase and deepening of baptismal grace” (Paragraph 1303).
In the Western Church, the diocesan bishop is the ordinary minister of the sacrament. Because it’s practically impossible for the bishop to be present for every infant baptism, especially in large dioceses, this has resulted in “the temporal separation of the two sacraments” (1290).
Noreen McInnes, director of the diocesan Office for Liturgy and Spirituality, said that Pope St. Pius X’s decision in 1910 to lower the age for receiving First Communion from age 12 to 7 resulted in an additional temporal separation.
She said it is “a misinterpretation” of confirmation to think of it as if it were a sort of “graduation” or a time for teenagers to make their own the baptismal vows that their godparents made on their behalf.
In the Eastern Catholic Church, all three sacraments of initiation are received by infants in quick succession.
Like baptism, the sacrament of confirmation leaves “a spiritual mark or indelible character on the Christian’s soul” and can be received only once (1317).
Confirmation is conferred when the bishop anoints the forehead of the confirmation candidate with sacred chrism and, in conjunction with the laying on of hands, says, “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
A fully initiated Catholic serves as each confirmation candidate’s sponsor.
Of the sacrament of confirmation, the Catechism states that “it unites us more firmly to Christ; it increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us; it renders our bond with the Church more perfect; 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 never to be ashamed of the Cross” (1303).
McInnes said that, when we receive a sacrament, the graces of that sacrament may bear fruit immediately or at a later time when we are “better disposed.”
“Oftentimes, we see teenagers confirmed and we’re like, ‘Did it take?’ But they may not be disposed at that time to receive all the graces and the gifts of the Holy Spirit,” said McInnes. “But we know, through our faith, that it will take a hold on them and they will receive the fullness of the sacrament as they need it, as they go forward and they mature in their lives as Christians.”
