Stay confirmed in faith and loved in mercy

Jul 22, 2016

By Francis Magimay
The Church of Our Lady of Fatima rejoiced and celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation on 38 young people, as well as the installation of Fr Ferdinand Magimay as its Parish Priest during a special Mass on Sunday, June 12.

His Grace Archbishop Julian Leow was the main celebrant with Fr Ferdinand and Fr Paul Hu concelebrating.

After the Gospel reading, the Parish Council chairperson, Brian de Rozario, read the Archbishop’s official letter addressed to Fr Ferdinand as Parish Priest of the Church of Our Lady of Fatima. The letter, dated April 6, 2015 indicated that Fr Ferdinand had served the parish for over a year.

Next, Fr Ferdinand renewed the promises he had made during his ordination as a priest. Archbishop Leow read out each promise, and he responded, “I do.” Then the prelate formally appointed him.

In his homily, His Grace said to the confirmands, “Our faith in Jesus is more important than following the law. Faith and reason must go together. Our faith, heart, head and intellect have the power to reason and understand the Scriptures and our Church’s traditions. The magisterium, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, is the one and only truth. We may ask why there are so many other churches. Are all of them true? Logically, they all cannot be true. Choose the faith you follow now, the faith handed down by Jesus and His Apostles 2000 years ago and taught by the Catholic Church. You must own the faith. You must be personally convinced in the faith and you must be committed to it.

“The Sacrament of Confirmation makes you adult Catholics from this day onwards and we must practise and share this faith with others. We pray during this Year of Mercy that God will remove darkness and error and enlighten our minds to understand our Catholic faith.

“We confirm our faith by renewing our Baptismal promises, and responding with a convincing Amen. We need to understand and deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ; otherwise, our faith will be on shaky ground. We must root our faith on fertile ground to hold firm and lead this faith, which we can trace to the times of the Apostles and to Jesus Christ.”

After the homily, Archbishop Leow asked the candidates to renew the Baptismal profession of faith they had made, or their parents and godparents had made, in union with the whole Church. With the concelebrants’ hands stretched out over the confirmands, His Grace prayed that God would pour out the Holy Spirit to strengthen His sons and daughters with His gifts and anoint them to be more like Christ. He then signed their forehead with the oil of chrism and the words, “Be sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit”.

At the closing, Fr Ferdinand thanked the parents, godparents, the sponsors, catechists, the liturgy committee, and all who had helped with the confirmation service. Fr Ferdinand expressed his heartfelt thanks to His Grace Archbishop Julian Leow for officiating the Sacrament and for installing him as Parish Priest of the Church of Our Lady of Fatima.

His Grace said “Thank you, Fr Ferdinand, for making the sacrifice to arrange a special Mass for the Sacrament of Confirmation. We have handed over our faith to our young people. Now we must help them to make the church grow, scale new heights, produce committed Christians and spread the faith to others. Importantly, we must help them to hold tightly to their confirmed faith and stay loved in God’s mercy through the sacraments.”