The Case for Confirmation

THE CASE FOR CONFIRMATION THAT a sacrament should need defense is not a matter for leisurely discussion but for immediate attention. It was just such practical attention which the sacrament of Confirmation received from the Fathers at the Council of Trent. There the first complete and definitive case for Confirmation was written. Against the attacks of the reformers, the Council defined Confirmation to be a sacrament of the New Law, instituted by Christ, which confers grace upon the recipient who places no obstacle to grace; it likewise impresses a character upon the souP All this was clear enough. It definitely declared the doctrine of the Church. Yet it did leave room for and, in time, even a demand for another kind of defense. This case would be directed not against those outside the Church but to those within. It would be directed not against denial but rather against indifference. Its aim would not be retractation but rather appreciation. That is exactly the case presented for Confirmation by the Church today. Let us put it in another way. If-by an impossible hypothesis -it were within the power of men to fix the number of the sacraments, and i£, in such a case, it were thought necessary to drop one of the seven sacraments, an overwhelming vote would nominate Confirmation to bow out of the sacramental system. It seems that this is the sacrament which men could do most easily without. The absolute necessity of Baptism and Penance, and the utility of Extreme Unction are borne in upon Catholics in their daily lives. They are almost bound to appreciate the intrinsic beauty and value of the Eucharist, of Matrimony and of Holy Orders. But Confirmation leaves them more than a little nonplussed and unappreciative. The ordinary Catholic can well appreciate the reception of Christ in the 1 Cf. Denziger, Enchiridion Symbolorum (Freiburg i. Br: 1932), 849, 852. 159 160 JAMES R. GILLIS Holy Eucharist but is more than a little vague about the reception of the Holy Ghost in Confirmation. This outlook is not due to the fact that Christ did not confer Confirmation, but promised the Paraclete to His apostles and disciples. It is not because this sacrament did not receive its proper name until the fifth century, nor merely because the matter and form of the sacrament are not to be discovered in the pages of Sacred Scripture. It is rather because this sacrament is aimed at making apostles, that its very aim is the apostolate; and there are so very few apostles. The reason why the average Catholic is unappreciative of the grace of this sacrament is because he has not found it necessary to call upon it to come surging into his soul. The reason why he has not found it necessary is that he had not found himself at odds with the world and its spirit; because the enemies of Christ and His Church have had no reason to look upon him as an adversary. In other words, his way of life has not been Catholic enough or Christlike enough for him to see the real opposition between himself and the world, whereas Christ had practically ordered him to find not only opposition, but even contradiction and persecution. There is something very special about this sacrament. It was promised by Christ as a sort of spiritual culmination of the gifts the apostles had already received.2 It was a very solemn promise, solemn in time, in manner, and in its absolute importance . Moreover the preparation demanded by Christ was much more formal than for any other of His gifts to them. It certainly was placed as a crisis in their lives, a sort of turning point in their careers. Fear and cowardice were forgivable in them during Christ's passion, but hardly after His Ascension. The whole world hung in a balance while they huddled togf'ther in the upper room waiting and praying. Would they go out of their retreat willingly, even boldly, to do work they had been given to do, or would the Jews have to track them down, haul them out, and put them to death for being the friends of the...