By Father Ted
“Change is the only constant in life.” I don’t know what prompted Heraclitus to make this claim back in antiquity, but it has proven true throughout history and in all human institutions, including the church. If you look back far enough, you will see that even our oldest, most ingrained traditions change over time. Perhaps nowhere is that more apparent than in the rite of confirmation.
Confirmation began as the second part of a two-stage process of Christian initiation. The first part was baptism, where one is immersed or sprinkled with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In some times and places in which one was baptized by a priest, it was then necessary to have that baptism confirmed by a bishop. Ideally, the confirmation took place immediately after the baptism, and converts to the faith were brought into the Body of Christ in one complete, two-stage rite.
However, as time grew on and the church changed, the priest-to-bishop ratios changed, too. As priests continued to baptize converts to Christianity and their households, there wasn’t always a bishop around to do the confirming. The newly baptized then had to wait until the bishop came to town to confirm them. This was the beginning of the separation of baptism and confirmation, stretching out the two-stage initiation rite into separate ceremonies sometimes years apart. The tradition developed where children were baptized with water soon after birth and then confirmed by a bishop as an adolescent or adult by the laying on of hands by the bishop, sometimes accompanied by a soft-but-firm slap on the cheek. (Thus the click-bait-esque title of this article.)
Changes continued over the centuries, and the church no longer treats confirmation as part of the initiation rite. As The Book of Common Prayer says on page 298, “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church.” In baptism, you become a full member of the church; you receive the full gift of the Holy Spirit; you share fully in Christ’s death and resurrection; and you receive the full forgiveness of sin.
So what has become of confirmation? Even if it is somewhat divorced from its original use, confirmation remains an important part of our life in Christ.
- It is a chance for us to stand before the congregation and reaffirm our faith and trust in God after a period of learning and discernment.
- Since bishops are symbols of the unity of the church, confirmation reminds us that the church to which we belong is far bigger than Transfiguration.
- It is an occasion to reaffirm the promises we made at baptism, or to claim those promises—which may have been made by our parents and godparents on our behalf—for ourselves.
- And finally, it is an opportunity to be filled again with the same grace that we first received in baptism.
On Sunday at the 11:15 service, 11 members of our parish, including those who were baptized at the Easter Vigil, will be confirmed when Bishop Wayne Smith comes to visit. In addition, 6 members who were confirmed in other denominations will be received into The Episcopal Church, and 4 others will reaffirm their baptismal vows and receive a special blessing from the bishop. No one is going to receive a slap in the face—a tradition that has fallen by the wayside—but they will all receive an extra portion of grace from the Holy Spirit.
I hope that you will join me in praying for these confirmands as they prepare for this sacred rite, and that you will be at church this weekend to pledge your support for them and extend your congratulations.
Fr. Ted