Confirmation
Confirmation is a Christian sacrament or rite of initiation that signifies the strengthening and deepening of a believer's faith. In many Christian denominations, confirmation is seen as a continuation of the process begun at baptism, where the individual receives the Holy Spirit in a more profound and personal way. Typically, it involves the laying on of hands by a bishop or priest, accompanied by prayers for the Holy Spirit to empower the confirmand with spiritual gifts and strengthen their commitment to the Christian faith.
Getting confirmed in the Christian faith is a significant step for several reasons:
Strengthening Your Faith: Confirmation deepens and strengthens your commitment to the Christian faith, solidifying the beliefs and values you hold.
Receiving the Holy Spirit: Through confirmation, you receive the Holy Spirit in a special way, empowering you with spiritual gifts to live out your faith more fully and confidently.
Completing Christian Initiation: Confirmation, along with baptism and Eucharist, completes your full initiation into the Christian community, marking your readiness to participate fully in the life and sacraments of the church.
Personal Affirmation: It provides an opportunity to personally affirm the promises made on your behalf during baptism, taking ownership of your faith journey.
Community and Support: Being confirmed connects you more deeply w
For those baptized as infants, confirmation usually takes place when they reach the age of reason or adolescence, symbolizing their personal affirmation of the faith commitments made on their behalf during baptism. In denominations that practice adult baptism, confirmation often occurs shortly after baptism. It marks the individual’s full initiation into the church, enabling them to participate more fully in the life of the Christian community, including receiving the Eucharist and, in some traditions, assuming leadership roles within the church.
“On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.”