Confirmation - Then and Now - Still Making A Difference

It was the 1970's and the Church was just starting to come out of the Kumbaya, I'm OK You're OK era. The cool breezes of Vatican II stirred the embers of the old Church as the reforms flooded onto the fertile ground of Holy Mother Church. 

These needed modern   reforms were mis-understood and in the attempt to become more relevant the Church shot itself in the foot. This is simply because the changes instead of being rolled out carefully with the due diligence that the old Church was famous for they were poured out like water on an unsuspecting class of believers. The average adult believer became a victim of shell shock as it seemed that the old practices that everyone was comfortable with were gone in a flash. 

Into the arena steps our hero, a twenty something young man who left his secure job at a well known mid western bank, taking his retirement fund, his whole capital of eight hundred dollars and he joined the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Penance in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He suffered through a very cold winter and in the summer he was transferred and became Brother Michael TOR a novice in the order at the Sacred Heart Monastery in Winchester VA. The lad really grew up in this the springtime of his life. He learned to cook, how to run a retreat house, shoveled manure,worked with what were called back then the mentally retarded and he taught a class of seventh graders enough religion at a little church in Pureseville VA. 

This last job, teaching the seventh graders at St.Francs de Sales Church was among the most rewarding things I ever did. There are a hundred stories I could tell about this job that was foisted upon me but suffice it to say that I could see in those youthful faces the future of the Church. Teaching them was a real pleasure. The big day arrived and the bishop (I don't remember his name) arrived early as did I and we sat down with the Franciscan Conventional Friar (again I cannot remember his name) and ate supper together and the conversation turned to teaching youth and of course here is novice brother Michael telling a bishop just what "we" could do to improve the religious education of youth. He was very polite and did not tell me to shut up, I guess that why he was a bishop, he WAS trained to overlook stupidity.

Today as part of the St.Mary of Vernon choir,some forty years removed from my experience with that class of wonderful kids, I will be singing at our parish's confirmation mass today where another class will take their place as young adults in the Church. It is so different today.  I remember when I was confirmed, there was memorization of facts from the Baltimore Catechism and endless class time spent on what it meant to be confirmed. We were to be soldiers of Christ. Today, thank God, the kids get some practical experience as to what that means. At our parish they are required to put in time doing service work, giving practical application to the book knowledge that they have to attain as well.  

Confirmation for the class of 2016 will give these young people's faith wings. Maybe a good percentage of them will stay active in the Church and take up the burdens that become to heavy for people to carry as they age. I believe that in yesteryear the confirmation classes were the last bit of Catholic education a young person would receive if they did not go to a Catholic high school and college. I think that the classes of yesteryear, through no fault of their own, did not get the benefit of using the book knowledge that they had attained and it became just another class to be taken. 

The future of Catholic Church is being built brick by brick with each confirmation class that we matriculate. Eventually the Kumbaya, feel good years will become a distant memory and the young adults that are confirmed today will help the Church bring the spirit of Vatican II into being in the Church. When that happens, look out, good things will happen. There will be a Renaissance and the Church will become stronger and able to meet the future head on.  Like it or not the Catholic Church is the only thing that stands between us and completely Godless, pagan society. The denominations are slowly sinking into depravity in order to keep themselves relevant. The Church on the other hand still continues her mission of speaking the truth and pointing the way to the narrow road.  The youth we confirm today will be our future. May God guide and keep them.  May God also forgive the old fool who writes these words for being so weak for so long. I cry out in a loud voice; Come Holy Spirit Come!"