If the expression “musical chairs’ could be loosely applied to any of the sacraments, it would have to be confirmation. Not that the Church has ever shoehorned this sacrament’s meaning to fit with all other six sacraments, but the Church has no doubt wrestled a bit with when exactly confirmation should occur, and what is its greater meaning according to the Holy Spirit. Based on Church history, one conclusion is for certain: Confirmation has always involved the Holy Spirit gifting baptized believers with the spiritual strength to proclaim the Gospel and be true witnesses to the faith (Tkacik and McGonigle 61).
Moreover, the Holy Spirit’s role in the Church’s mission has been infinitely larger than what the sacraments alone communicate. Having just recently celebrated Pentecost at the end of this Easter season, the Church is reminded of the Holy Spirit as the force that animates the soul to act on the salvation and grace humankind receives through Jesus Christ. According to Catholic teaching, and which manifests throughout both the Old and New Testament, the Holy Spirit — also known as the Spirit of God — has been the breath, wind, air, or other mediative means that God delivers to the world and make his revelation known (Tkacik SLU 2023).
In the Old Testament, God forms man by *breathing* life into him (Genesis 2:7); he assures Moses that the spirit will be conferred upon the Israelites; and David receives the “spirit of the Lord” after being anointed by Samuel. These are a few of many examples that point to what would eventually be more fully understood as the third Person in the Trinity (Tkacik SLU 2023).
Which leads to how the Holy Spirit is characterized in the New Testament. John 3:5 reveals that, among the various ways that the Holy Spirit works through humankind, the Spirit is also the means by which believers seal their salvation and then commit to living a new spiritual life through Christ. For Christians, this all started with Pentecost — a primordial event in which the Holy Spirit ignited the Apostles’ souls to share the Gospel in its true form with the world. The Spirit, in turn, committed itself to guiding the Church’s mission. And because the Spirit’s relationship with baptized believers is infused with salvation and what it means to model Jesus’ earthly ministry, the first Christians introduced the confirmation rite as the way the Spirit seals the salvific purpose of baptism, and then moves believers into a more mature, and even more action oriented, relationship (Tkacik SLU 2023).
However, as baptism and confirmation are individual sacraments, the gift that the Holy Spirit bestows in each has its own purpose and greater meaning. In modern times, and as a reinforced in Vatican II, confirmation continues to be a sacrament in which “the Holy Spirit endows them <believers> with the special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith” (Lumen Gentium #11). Still, when considering how the early Christians carried out the confirmation rite, versus how it is performed today, “musical chairs,” is one way to describe the near mind-boggling number of approaches the Church has used to keep the meaning of confirmation in-tact.
Beginning in the first and second centuries, when a new Christian received baptism, a confirmation rite was performed immediately after. Although this rite was not specifically named confirmation until the fifth century (Tkacik Module 3 Slide 14), its fundamental purpose was to complete the baptismal rite and edify believers to become more active in the Church’s mission. Early references in Scripture do not specifies a rite that seals the Holy Spirit to baptized believers; however, the books of Acts does indeed draw connections between gifts from the Spirit and being initiated into the Christian community (Power 502).
Saint Paul, of course, had a major role in explaining why receiving the Spirit was necessary to receive salvation while also being fully received into Christian life. Building on an analogy that Power uses to explain baptism, the baptismal rite is like shedding dirty clothes (sin) in order to be newly clothed in Christ’s righteousness (503); whereas confirmation is like being gifted with the mature understanding of why it is important to keep clothes cleaned and pressed, and why it is important to lead others with dirty clothes to new clothes.
After the Apostolic Age, thus began the musical chairs of when, how, and for what reason to perform confirmation. Much of the confusion stemmed from the Church’s challenges with competing heretical movements, the ever-growing numbers of both Jews and Gentiles converting to Christian belief, and the noticeable increase in infant baptisms. Nevertheless, beginning in the early Patristic Era (200 – 500 AD), Tertullian, Origen, and other contributors to Catholic theology and ecclesiology continued defining the post-baptismal rite as the Holy Spirit essentially being stamped onto the believer during the anointing process (Tkacik SLU 2023).
Gliding into the later Patristic era (600 – 800 AD), the Church defined confirmation as a Spirit-filled sacrament that creates “soldiers” for Christ by compelling them to witness to an often corrupt secular world (Tkacik SLU 2023). The Scholastics then added to this definition, as they saw confirmation as having an even more robust spiritual purpose: Scholastics taught that confirmation perfects the spiritual rebirth that begins in baptism. In this state, the believer gains a more mature position in the Church’s mission, one that calls the baptized to use their confirmed spiritual power to uphold Catholic belief and lead people to the Church. In fact, the Scholastics related both baptism and confirmation to stages of spiritual growth: If baptism is equal to birth, and confirmation is equal to maturity, then the Spirit’s gift through baptism is the believer’s salvation, while the Spirit’s gift in confirmation emboldens believers to profess their faith publicly and lead others to salvation (Tkacik SLU 2023; Power 507).
Fast forward to the Council of Trent and all the way into post-Vatican II modern times, the Church has continued to uphold the Scholastics’ overall view of confirmation — though here is where centuries of debates have occurred over what age, or in conjunction with receiving baptism and the Eucharist, is a believer mature enough to receive confirmation. That topic is an entire discussion post in itself. In the meantime, Power points out that the answer may lie in pastoral theology, though the ongoing question is whether a pastoral approach will continue to give confirmation the correct meaning and sacramental direction (Power 506, 507).
Documents from Vatican II (Lumen Gentium, Apostolicam Actuositate, Sacrosanctum Concilium), as well as subsequent works (1971 Rite of Confirmation and Code of Canon Law of 1983), all uphold the meaning of confirmation as the Spirit endowing the faithful “to share in the Church’s mission to “evangelize, sanctify, and renew the secular order.” Therefore, confirmed believers, as mature, public witnesses empowered by the Holy Spirit, are to strive for justice among the Church and the society it serves (Tkacik SLU 2023).
But what precisely does it mean to live a mature and public role in the life of the Church, and in society overall? As Vatican II explained that, through baptism, Catholics share in Christ’s role as priest, prophet, and king (Tkacik and McGonigle 62) — this means that all members of the Body of Christ, including the laity, are assigned to the apostolate. “They are consecrated for the royal priesthood and the holy people (1 Peter 2:4-10) not only that they may offer spiritual sacrifices in everything they do but also that they may witness to Christ throughout the world” (Apostolicam Actuositatem #3).
Furthermore, because Vatican II emphasized the Church’s own role as a sacrament — that it is a visible sign of God’s grace — so too are believers to be a sacrament. In doing so out in the public space, Catholics are to live a spiritually whole life that reflects Christ’s presence in the world. Call a chain reaction, if you will: When believers mirror Jesus, they illuminate the Church to reflect the same, which then reinforces to the world why salvation through Jesus transforms souls into righteous beings with a mature understanding of proclaiming the Gospel (Tkacik SLU 2023).
Works Cited
Apostolicam Atuositatem (Decress on the Apostolate of the Laity): https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651118_apostolicam-actuositatem_en.html
Power, David N., author. Fiorenza, Francis S., and John P. Galvin, eds. Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011. DECREE ON THE APOSTOLATE OF THE LAITY
Saint Leo University Core Values: https://ministry.saintleo.edu/saint-leo-university-core-values
Tkacik, Michael J., and Thomas M. McGonigle, O.P. Pneumatic Correctives: What is the Spirit Saying to the Church of the 21st Century? Lanham: University Press of America, 2007
Tkacik, Michael J. Module 3 Slides. THY-513. Saint Leo University, 2023.Reply to Thread