The solemnity of Pentecost, 225 teenagers and 18 adults received their Sacrament of Confirmation

Jun 03, 2016

By Joyce Chan
On May 15, the solemnity of Pentecost, 225 teenagers and 18 adults received their Sacrament of Confirmation from His Excellency, Right Reverend Richard Ng, the Bishop of Miri, in the Church of Mater Dei, Miri. He was assisted by Monsignor Francis Kuleh and Fr Vincent Shim.

These 225 teenagers had gone through six months of Confirmation Classes, consisting of 30 faith formation talks conducted by Christ Teens Miri (a ministry for teenagers in the Diocese of Miri) beginning in November 2015 and running until May 2016.

In addition to these classes, the confirmands were also required to attend a live-in four-day Life in the Spirit Seminar in March 2016, during their mid-term school holidays. A number of confirmands shared that in the beginning, they were very reluctant to attend the seminar as they had to leave the comfort of their homes and it upset their holiday plans. However, after the seminar, they shared that they wished the seminar had not ended. Many of them shared that they had experienced a personal encounter with the Lord during the seminar and this ignited their faith and zeal for God.

Part of this confirmation programme included outdoor activities. The confirmands attended a one-day Team Building activity at the Eastwood Valley Golf and Country Club. This teambuilding activity helped them appreciate God’s creation in nature, to learn the value of teamwork, to build rapport among themselves and to have some fun together.

During the teambuilding, the confirmands had to go through an obstacle course, play some teambuilding games and also experience rowing a boat around the lake to retrieve balloons from the lake — which proved to be a challenging task as many of them had never rowed a boat before. During his homily, Bishop Ng highlighted that in life, there are three things we cannot live without — food, water and air. Of these three, air is the most important as we would not be able to survive more than three minutes without air. Similarly with our Spiritual Life, there are three things that are necessary — Spiritual food which is the Body of Christ, the Water of Baptism where we are baptized to become children of God and live our lives as children of God, and most importantly — air — which is likened to the Spirit of God (in Hebrew “Breath of God”). Without the Spirit of God, we cannot live because we become unspiritual.

“Sometimes, we can’t explain why we have that extra bit of kindness or compassion, to say sorry – that is the working of the Spirit. With the Spirit we can love, be kind, be compassionate and be able to sacrifice, ” said Bishop Richard.

Tying in with the Year of Mercy, Bishop Ng reminded the young people that mercy is one of the fruits of the Spirit. Being young and energetic, he encouraged them to be kind, to do good and be ready to serve and to sacrifice their time. This is so important in a world where there is so much conflict among different religions. As such, the young people really need to stand up to be witnesses of Christ, to be agents of mercy, peace and reconciliation.

“Confirmation is when you receive the Spirit of God to light you up and fill you with courage. God will make use of you as His instrument, to be witnesses, especially witnesses of mercy and witnesses of compassion.” Bishop Ng also prayed that all the parishioners be born again today and be witnesses of mercy.