Confirmation – sacrament of the Holy Spirit
5th Sunday after Easter
Beloved in Jesus Christ, the first reading today is from the Acts of the Apostles. During this Easter season, we have been reading a lot from the Acts of the Apostles, it is the story of the early Church. By reading this great book, we can get some insights into the early Church.
.
For example, in Acts chapter 8, it tells us that there were some people who had only been baptized, but they had never received the Holy Spirit, so the apostles went there, laid hands on them and prayed, and they received the Holy Spirit. The same thing happened in Acts chapter 19; some people were baptized, and in a separate action, St. Paul, praying, laid hands on them, and it says ‘they received the Holy Spirit.’
.
We can see from these events, that in addition to baptism, a separate action is necessary, for a person to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit; the east calls this ‘chrismation,’ we call it Confirmation. The Sacrament of Confirmation is one of the 7 sacraments of the Church, and as we have seen, it has been the practice of the faith since the time of the Apostles.
.
Confirmation really completes baptism, and we might say that it is the ‘sacrament of the Holy Spirit.’ In the early church, it was a common practice, that after a person was baptized by the bishop, he would then immediately receive Confirmation, even a baby. But as the Church grew quickly, the bishop was not able to be there for every baptism, and so the custom began that the priest would baptize, and then later the bishop would come and administer Confirmation.
.
When the bishop does this, hands are laid on the person, a prayer calls down the Holy Spirit, and then the person is anointed with Sacred Chrism. Sacred Chrism is one of the 3 oils used in the sacraments. The three oils are: the oil of the sick, the oil of catechumens, and Sacred Chrism.
.
Sacred Chrism is used in the 3 sacraments that permanently change you: baptism, confirmation, and holy orders. You can only receive these sacraments once, because a permanent change occurs in your soul. In baptism, you are permanently made into a Christian, a child of God, a member of the Church, and that can never be changed. Even if you become a bad Christian, ignore the faith, or worse – you are still a child of God, a member of the Church. When a man is ordained a priest, he is permanently a priest, it can never be changed. Even if he would become a loser priest or even suspended by the bishop, he’s still a priest.
.
So what is the permanent change in a person who receives Confirmation? We can say that if in baptism the person became a child of God, in Confirmation the person becomes a soldier of God. This means we are given a new strength of the Holy Spirit to stand up for Christ, to defend the Holy Faith, to be a witness. By baptism we are a child, by confirmation a mature and brave Christian. A child is not expected to defend their home, but an adult is. A confirmed Catholic is expected to always stand up for the true teachings of Holy Mother Church.
.
These days, we often have chances to speak about the true moral way of life – even when such words are not popular. Confirmation gives us an increase in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit for the express purpose of standing for Christ, even if it would mean giving our life. We see this in the middle east, many people giving their life for Christ.
.
I was thinking about all the martyrs who gave their life. St. Lucy came to mind, she was in such a situation. She was brought before the proconsul and ordered to give up her faith; she was required to comply with the law of the Empire.
But Lucy responded: ‘You obey your master’s laws, I shall obey the laws of my God.’
Proconsul: ‘I will have you tortured to death.’
Lucy: ‘I am ready for every torture. I offer myself to the Lord.’
.
And so she did. It was the power of the Holy Spirit, alive in her, that gave her the strength to stand for Christ, giving her life. Her name is mentioned to this very day in the 1st Eucharistic prayer – because she is an example for us. We need the power of Confirmation, these Gifts of the Holy Spirit, to help us be strong and true Catholics in the midst of a confused and even hostile society.
.
A young woman told me that in her high school, one of her teachers is an atheist, and is always finding little ways to criticize the Catholic Church, distorting history lessons, and even making up lies. She said, ‘Father, I was not going to take that, I spoke up and told him he was wrong.’
‘And you got away with that?,’ I asked.
‘Father, I’m the smartest in my class!’
.
This is the power of the Holy Spirit. In just a few weeks we will celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the entire Church. We must all act by the movement of the Holy Spirit. As we read today in the Acts of the Apostles, even though great pressure was being put on the Church – even though the authorities were trying to silence the faith – it says that ‘with the consolation of the Holy Spirit, the Church continued to grow,’ — as it still does today.
.
We are to be other Christs in this world, other Jesus’s. By the power of the Sacraments we are strengthened to live the Christ life, even when it is counter-cultural, when it is not popular. Jesus tells us in the gospel, that he is like a vine, like a grapevine, for example. We are the branches of that vine. But for the branches to live, and grow, and produce fruit, we need the sap and the nutrients coming from the main vine. We need the power of the Holy Spirit flowing from Christ into our souls, for power.
.
Although we receive the Holy Spirit in our souls at baptism, we receive a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, with new graces, at our Confirmation. But we must act on these graces for them to become fruitful, we must pray daily, to remain connected to the vine, that is Christ.
.
St. Paul sums up our role in today’s world. ‘Be blameless and innocent children of God,’ he says, ‘in the mist of a twisted and perverse generation, for among them you must shine like stars in the world.’
.
We must shine like stars. It isn’t always easy.
But if our commitment to the Lord’s way is sometimes weak, we can always call on another advocate who will help us: Mary.
Mary is known as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, and if we remain close to her, she will help us to remain faithful to God. In ancient times, if a sailor was losing his way and it was getting dark, he could look for that special star, by which he could be guided to port. Mary has been called the Star of the Sea. In old paintings, you will often see a single star on her veil. She is the star who keeps us on the right path, keeps us close to the Holy Spirit, if we ask her.
.
O Mary, star of the sea, pray for me.
.
[Entrusted to the prayers of St. Agatha]
St. Pius V, Pope
Friends in the Lord, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Catholic Church in Europe was a mess. Laxness and sin and scandal were everywhere: in the priesthood, the monasteries, and even the Papacy. Society itself was very corrupt, and the Church was swimming in it.
.
It was in this setting that Martin Luther broke with the Faith in the Protestant Reformation. It is true that Luther and others taught heresies and rejected serious teachings of Christ, but the strength of Protestantism was because of the corruption in the Church.
.
So, the Church had to really get down to business and begin reform. There had in fact been a budding, Catholic reform movement for years, and this movement culminated in the Council of Trent, which was even more important than the 2nd Vatican Council.
.
The Council of Trent outlined an enormous task of reform, and when the Council ended, then began the difficult task of implementing these reforms; this work largely fell onto the shoulders of Pope Pius V, whose feast is today.
.
He had become a Dominican at age 14, then a lecturer in philosophy and theology, and very early, he had become involved in this growing reform movement, which got him noticed. As a bishop, his work in his diocese bore great fruit.
.
When he was elected Pope, he announced his clear intention of carrying out the reforms called for by the Council of Trent. Pius V insisted that bishops reside in their diocese; he reformed religious orders, and also established seminaries to properly train priests; before this time there were no seminaries, priests learned on-the-job as sort of an apprentice.
.
The Pope held various synods, and he revised the Breviary. Pius V brought unity to divine worship, published catechisms, revised the translation of scripture, and revitalized the study of theology and canon law.
.
As if that were not enough, it was during his pontificate, that the Turks threatened war on Europe; Pius V led the Catholic world in prayer of the Rosary, for the victory at Lepanto. It saved Europe from Islam.
.
When he was elected Pope, he chose to continue wearing his white, Dominican habit. That tradition continued, and this is the reason that the Pope wears white to this very day.
.
As with most big Councils, and as we have seen with Vatican II, lots of turmoil and problems happen afterwards for many years. These same troubles occurred then, and this saddened Pius V to no end, until his death in 1572.
.
Pope Pius V teaches us to persevere in our efforts, always trusting in God; though he did not see the fruits of his labor in his lifetime, the reforms did take hold, and they renewed the Church for centuries thereafter.
You needn’t be a vegan
Friends in Christ, today in the Acts of the Apostles, we see that St. Peter is given this strange vision by God. In the vision, he saw a large sheet coming down from the sky; it contained many four-legged animals of the earth and birds; he then heard a voice say: ‘Peter, kill and eat.’
.
He was shocked, because only some animals the Jews were allowed to eat, but here was God telling him to ‘kill and eat’ all kinds of animals. This was a sign to Peter that no longer were there certain unclean foods, and that most importantly, the Gentiles were now to be invited into the Covenant.
.
It is evident that no foods are unclean to we Christians. There is nothing sinful about eating plants or animals of all types. Some people today are trying to claim that to be a good Christian, you may not eat meat, but this is not Catholic and it is certainly not Biblical.
.
The Catechism tells us that we must respect the integrity of creation. Animals and plants are for the common good of humanity. It is therefore legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. Medical experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives. It is not right to cause animals to suffer needlessly, and it is not right to spend a lot of money on an animal that otherwise could be used to help relieve human misery. While we can love our pet, they should not be given the kind of affection due only to persons.
.
The Holy Scriptures tell us that God gives us all creatures for our use and for food. (Genesis 9:3)
Jesus ate fish, he fed 5000 people with fish, he ate the Passover lamb every year, and he told the people that they are worth far more than birds. Although animals have feelings and emotions, they do not have a spiritual soul; unlike angels and human beings, they are not Persons.
.
For health reasons, a person may decide not to eat meat, but if they say that it is a sin to kill an animal for food, they are not aligned with the Catholic faith, and they do not grasp the great dignity of the human person in the order of creation.
.
Following the Church and the Holy Scriptures, we care for creation and the resources God gives us, and we are perfectly free to eat meat, because what defiles us is not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out.
St. George and the dragon
Friends in Christ, today is the feast of St. George[i] and also St. Adalbert.
Today, St. George:
St. George was a martyr who died for the Faith in 304AD, but he is perhaps most famous for his encounter with the dragon.
.
According to legend, it happened that near the city of Selena, there was a large lake, wherein lurked a dragon, perhaps a sort of sea-monster, like the Loc Nest Monster. Many times the dragon would come up to the city walls and poison people by his breath, because he was infected with the plague.
.
To appease this monster, the townspeople fed him two sheep every day, to keep it satisfied. But as they were running out of sheep, they painfully decided to feed him one sheep and one person. The name of the person was drawn by lot. But soon almost all the young people had been eaten up.
.
Then one day the lot fell upon the only daughter of the king. The king was beside himself with grief, and ready to give anything except his daughter, but the girl courageously began walking down toward the lake.
.
At this moment George, who was a Knight, happened to be passing by, and seeing the girl in tears, he asked her why she wept. When she told him, he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am going to help you in the name of Christ. ‘Oh, Brave knight she said, save yourself, otherwise you will die with me.
.
Just then, the dragon reared his head out of the lake and began coming toward them. George, mounting his horse and arming himself with the sign of the cross, bravely went after the dragon, and with his lance, he dealt the beast a serious wound. Then he called to the girl and had her throw her apron around the neck of the beast. When she had done this, the dragon followed her by her apron strings like a little dog on a leash.
.
She led him toward the city and the people cried ‘we will be eaten alive!’ but George said: the Lord has sent me to deliver you from this dragon, believe in Christ and be baptized, and I will slay it. Then the king and all the people were baptized, and George, drawing his sword put an end to the beast. On that day twenty thousand were baptized.[ii]
.
In this story, the dragon represents the devil. The King, is God the Father. His beloved daughter, is the Church. And St. George, who slays the dragon, represents Jesus Christ.
.
[i] St. George was a Christian from his youth, and he joined the army under emperor Diocletian. He became a Colonel. But when a persecution was begun against Christians in 304, George openly professed his Faith, even under horrific tortures.
[ii] The king built a magnificent church there in honor of the Blessed Virgin and St. George,
and from the altar flowed a spring whose waters cure all diseases.
The Eucharist and the Resurrection
Friends in Christ, in today’s Gospel, Our Lord is beginning his famous ‘Bread of Life’ discourse, and we will be reading it over the next few days. Jesus says, ‘I am the Bread of Life;’ he will go on to teach about the Holy Eucharist, that it is truly his Flesh and Blood.
.
So why during the Easter Season, does Mother church have us read this? Well, in this discourse, Our Lord will, multiple times link the Holy Eucharist with the Resurrection. 8 times Jesus will speak of the Resurrection and of Eternal Life – and incidentally, the number ‘8’ is the symbol for the Resurrection, 8 times he says it. Our Lord is connecting our eating of the Holy Eucharist with our own Resurrection.
.
During the first week of the Easter Season, we read about the appearances of the Resurrected Lord to the Apostles, and these appearances had Eucharistic over-tones. He comes to Thomas on Sunday – the primary day of the Eucharist – and he says, ‘Thomas, touch me, see that I am really here,’ bodily. In the same way, on Sunday, the Church gathers and in fact, Jesus IS really there, and in the Sacrament we touch him.
.
It was on Sunday, that Our Lord met his disciples on the Road to Emmaus. There they finally recognized him in the Breaking of the Bread. So Our Lord connects the resurrection – his and ours – to Holy Communion.
.
The Church teaches that when we receive Holy Communion, we are receiving the Risen Christ. This Risen Christ is able to be in many places at the same time; scripture says that he once appeared to over 500 disciples at the same time; and so Christ can be received by you and by me and a thousand others.
.
Is receiving Holy Communion then, essential to our own resurrection? Well, if we wish to be resurrected in glory, how can we do it without being in contact with the Body of Christ? Thomas Aquinas says that normally yes, we must eat his Body in order to be resurrected, and this is why the Church requires us to receive the Eucharist at least once a year; But Aquinas says this is not absolutely required.
.
If a baby or a young person was baptized and dies, but has not yet received Holy Communion, what of them? As St. Augustine says, by being baptized, they already begin to share in the Body of Christ – the Church.
My own strength? Not
“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” And he said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.’
.
Friends in Christ, in the gospel today, Our Lord is disappointed with the people chasing after him, because their minds are on earthly things. Jesus wishes our eyes to look more upward, to Him, to ensure that what we are doing is done with Him.
.
In his famous book, The Soul of the Apostolate, Dom Chautard emphasizes that a life of good works and even many important undertakings, are useless if we do not have an interior life. We need to have an interior life, that is, acting and living in union with God.
.
The world of today is intoxicated with its own, sterile, activities; so much of what is passed off for virtuous or generous works, is often a veneer for pride and worldly motivations.
.
St. Josemaria would say that prayer must be first in our life. Second in importance is sacrifice, self-denial, the seeking of humility; and lastly – and definitely last: good works, actions, and activities.
.
Can you imagine if a priest said, ‘I’m really too busy to pray; we have so many important projects to do and sermons to write and sick to visit – I always tell God that I will produce great results for him if he just stays out of my way.’ Can we imagine how utterly pathetic that would be, to hear that a priest puts his confidence in his own efforts and does not rely on prayer and the assistance of God? We would say: ‘He’s crazy.’
.
But this is the truth for everyone. The Lord has said, ‘Without me, you can do nothing,’ and any experienced Christian has learned that – usually the hard way.
.
Pope St. John Paul II said that there is a temptation that continually hangs over every good work: the thought that the results depend on me. Of course we must work hard, ‘but,’ he says, ‘it is fatal to forget that “without Christ we can do nothing.”
Why is there suffering?
Latin Mass: 2nd Sunday after Easter
Friends in Christ, in the Epistle today from St. Peter, we read: ‘Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.’
.
Suffering is part of this life, no one can deny that. As we saw in Holy Week, suffering was the path to our redemption. In the resurrection, Jesus showed his apostles the nail prints in his hands and feet – evidence that suffering is central to the mystery of salvation.
.
But the suffering in the world can make people question their faith. Young people sometimes ask: ‘How can God allow suffering?’ ‘If God is all good and all powerful, why does he allow this to happen to me, or my brother, or my mother?’ ‘Why does he allow people to be tortured and persecuted?’ ‘Why is there cancer?’
.
This is one of the greatest questions there is. It is called ‘the problem of evil.’
Now contained in this question are two different types of evil. Physical evil and moral evil.
.
Physical evil is: why does God allow cancer, or earthquakes, or typhoons; why does God allow a person to be attacked by a shark? ‘Why did my father have to die?’ These are causes of suffering which are not due to anyone’s fault, but due to nature. Like those innocent sheep in the gospel today who the wolf attacks, it is an act of nature.
.
The other kind of evil is moral evil. Why does God allow ISIS to kill innocent Christian people? Why does God allow a gang member to kill a child in the city, or your friend to be beaten up by bullies? Why does God permit these evils? These are ‘moral evils,’ they are caused directly by sin.
.
Atheists often bring up this question of evil: ‘The evil in the world proves there is no God. If God were all powerful and all good, he would not allow suffering.’ So what can we say about this?
.
First let’s say the small things, and then the big thing.
First, Free-Will
If God were going to stop the gang member from shooting, if he miraculously stopped the bullet in mid-air; or if, when the bully is going to throw the punch, his arm miraculously would freeze up and in this way, no one would be capable of ever hurting another, then we would really be robots controlled by God, there would no longer be free-will. God has given us a great gift: free-will. He wants us to use it to love him, but the Lord must weep often, over how it is wrongly used to hurt others. And every parent often feels this same frustration, seeing children use their free-will, not always for good things.
.
God also allows the devil to exercise his free-will; the devil was the original source of all the moral evil, and the demons create enormous pain in the world by their temptations. So this is one reason that God allows moral evil: free-will. and we must say that he ALLOWS all this, but he does not desire it. It is his permissive will, not his active will. God weeps over the suffering of the world.
.
Another thing for us to consider, is that God is working on a much larger scale than we are. He can see the very long-term effects of things. God is painting a masterpiece that extends over millions of years. If you put your face up close to a painting, you may say: ‘This black smudge is ugly, what a mistake.’ But backing away a distance, one can see that that black spot is a very important part of the entire painting.
.
We see a handicapped child in a family; why did God allow this? And then we meet the brothers and sisters and parents, and we find out that that handicapped child has made all of them into better people: kind, patient, and giving. We can sometimes see good that comes out of trouble.
.
God allows some people to be cruel, irritating, or unkind; but it is just these persons who allow another to be patient, serene, and long-suffering. How can we pray for our enemies, unless we have some? For most of us to become a saint, there must be another person in our life – ‘to make us a saint,’ if you know what I mean!! So God can bring good out of evil, even if we can’t always see it.
.
God also wants nature to be free. He allows cancer cells to grow in their own way, he allows sharks to do what sharks do and germs to do what germs do. The wind and seas move as they will; the earth’s crust shifts in a freedom all it’s own.
.
In the 2004 earthquake/Sunami, thousands of people died. This tragic event however produced an enormous amount of compassion and aid and generosity on the part of others. ‘But all those people died,’ you say. yes. But that isn’t the end of the story for them, is it?
.
A man and woman were chatting in a barber shop in New York. The TV was on. They saw the devastation from the Sunami. The man shook his head. ‘Life is terrible.’ The woman said, ‘No, life is beautiful, but it’s full of pain.’
.
Among the smaller answers to the question of pain in the world, we have to say this: Say the Cubs are playing the Cardinals and they win easily. The fans would be happy. But that’s not the kind of game God has in mind. If the Cubs and Cardinals instead are in a battle of the century; the lead changes back and forth; men get injured, it goes extra innings – 18 innings – 25 innings. Both bullpens are used up. And victory comes in the 28th inning on a squeeze play at the plate – this is more like God’s world. In life we often have to claw and scratch for every inch; but this how God can make us great.
.
These are some of the smaller reasons we can mention. But how really do we answer the atheist? Let us ask: ‘If there is no God, then what? Then suffering is totally meaningless, then everything is meaningless.
But St. Paul has a different answer: ‘We are heirs with Christ,’ he says, ‘provided – provided that we suffer with him – that we may also be glorified with him.’
.
God has not totally explained the Mystery of suffering, but it is true that God himself has come into the world and has joined himself to our suffering. He didn’t take it away, but he has chosen to be IN all of our pain along with us, giving it meaning. It was through suffering, that he saved the world. And when our suffering is united to Christ, we are doing what Jesus did, we are helping him save the world.
.
A lady was giving a lecture at the hospital to all the chaplains. She told us about a woman with cancer, who refused pain medicine, because she ‘wanted to offer her pain up for her family.’ The protestant chaplains laughed and said ‘it’s foolish.’ But we Catholics did not laugh; we had respect.
.
God has not taken away suffering, but he has joined into it, with us. In heaven, when the meaning of all things is revealed, after the pain of this life – we will finally see the end of the story. We must therefore trust God today, until we are able to see the end of the story.
.
May the blessed Virgin assist us in all the trials of this life, that we may see her glorious face with Jesus, in heaven.
.
[Entrusted to the prayers of St. Teresa of Avila]
