To Confirm

One of my many roles in the parish in which I work is as Confirmation Coordinator. It is around this time each year that I find myself amidst preparing 75-85 adolescents for their Confirmation into the Catholic Church.

Admittedly, when I started in this position I did not have a very deep sense of what this sacrament is all about. Of course I had been confirmed myself and I had even been a sponsor on more than one occasion. Even so, its’ significance wasn’t much more to me than as a rite of passage.. something one does when they get to be about 15 or 16 if they plan to continue on their faith journey. It should not come as much of a surprise to me, then, that this is approximately the amount of knowledge and understanding that my students and their parents have about this sacrament as well.

It seems obvious that in order to teach, one has to know, and hence, my understanding and appreciation of this sacrament has grown immensely over the past four years. In coming to realize that Confirmation entails truly “confirming” one’s faith, it has been important to me that my students have a real understanding of what the faith is that they are confirming. It has become important to me that upon reaching their Confirmation day, my students are able to articulate how exactly their beliefs and values stand on their own, apart from the beliefs and values of their parents, Godparents, sponsors and even me. If confirmation is about a commitment to live out those values for the rest of their lives, I want my students to be sure that they are values which they freely and wholeheartedly choose to commit to.

This being my logic, we spend a good amount of time talking about faith; the real, personal, experienced faith of these young people. And, in order to talk about faith, it seems only natural to me to talk about doubt. Apparently this jump, what I’d call a step, to doubt, is concerning for others.

I have come to realize that many faithful adults are afraid of the word “doubt”. It almost feels as if people are concerned that God’s psyche is too fragile to handle our doubts and questions… that somehow through our searching we will offend God and lose God’s grace.

This trepidation became apparent to me early on in my ministry when I came across a parent who wondered why we didn’t confirm students when they were in eighth grade. The implication was, “why don’t we confirm students when they are younger, while we still have control over their lives”. I think many parents share this sentiment: that it would be better that we confirm our young people before they have a chance to think for themselves.. before they begin to question.. before they begin to have competing priorities.. before they get too busy for God. Even at 15 and 16, so many of my students admittedly still have no better reason to be confirmed than because “someone is making me”.

I understand the pull to get confirmed because “that’s what you do when you’re Catholic”. But, if that is our only reason, if we treat this sacrament entirely as a rite of passage, if we do it without thinking about why, or what we believe in, or how we mean to live it out in our lives, than it is no wonder that so many youth grow up to become adults who leave the Church. They leave the Church because they weren’t really “thinking for themselves” when they entered in the first place.

One of my favorite quotes on this subject is from Benedictine Sister, Joan Chittister:

The problem with accepting truth as it comes to us rather than truth as we divine it for ourselves is that it’s not worth dying for—and we don’t. It becomes a patina of ideas inside of which we live our lives without passion, without care. This kind of faith happens around us but not in us-we go through the motions. The first crack in the edifice and we’re gone. The first chink in the wall of the castle keep and we’re off to less demanding fields. Doubt, on the other hand, is the mother of conviction. Once we have pursued our doubts to the dust, we forge a stronger, not a weaker belief system. These truths are true, we know, because they are now true for us rather than simply for someone else.

All around me I see people, young and old alike, who have faith happening around them but not in them. I see people who are so scared to doubt, that when pressed to justify their beliefs they have no better response than, “that’s what the Church teaches” without any real understanding of why or for what purpose. This kind of faith works for many people. But for others, at the “first crack in the edifice”.. the first time tragedy strikes.. the first time a loved one dies.. the first time they enter a philosophy class.. the first time they meet someone passionately invested in a faith other than their own.. and they’re gone.

I would rather that we invite and even encourage deep personal reflection, replete with doubts. I would rather we take the chance that in so doing, some people may walk away, but more will “forge a stronger, not a weaker belief system”. When I look around the world, I am convinced that we need less lukewarm believers and more people wholeheartedly confirmed in a faith of hope, compassion, love, and justice.

When I look at my young people, I pray that they have the courage not merely to “conform”, to accept truth as it comes to them, but instead to “confirm”… to confirm truths that are true for themselves not simply for someone else.