A reflection on preparing young people for the Sacrament of Confirmation: ‘The Holy Spirit is given to us…’

Jun 02, 2017

By Anne-Marie Gerard
In the high school chapel, young people are meditating. A song rises spontaneously. Then silence. A song springs up again: The Holy Spirit is given to us…

The last preparatory meeting for confirmation has just ended. We, who are accompanying these youths, are both surprised and moved by this improvised praise. Something has taken place during these times of preparation — something which is beyond us.

Preparing young people for confirmation is always a source of joy. I remember being asked that question. “There was the Father, then the Son, and is it now the time of the Spirit?”

We had to go deeper into the mystery of our faith with them. The Holy Spirit reveals the Son to us, as the Son reveals the Father to us. They are one and forever united. “The Father does all things through the Word in the Spirit, and it is how the unity of the Holy Triad is maintained,” St Athanasius wrote.

The Holy Spirit makes us become adopted children, called to be modelled, and configured after the Son. And the Spirit murmurs within us, “Abba, Father.” The confirmation is a “yes” to the baptismal commitment that was made within the faith of our parents and of the Church.

God first loved us. The response of faith — this act which is freely set down, is sustained by the very Love of God, and is held by grace — brings us into the family of God Himself.

This “yes” makes us free, for where the Spirit is, there is our freedom. “The Holy Spirit truly transforms us and, through us, wants to transform the world in which we live,” John-Paul II said to his confirmands.

The confirmation is our Pentecost for life.

In a high school chapel, a song rises: Come hence, and write your apostle’s acts, and offer a blank page to His Spirit…

Young people are meditating. They want to be witnesses of Jesus Christ; to be faithful to the sharing of bread, and to serve just as the One who serves. A song rises, praise to God, our Father. --La Croix