K. Stefanowska: a broken sacrament

However, between baptism and marriage, which sacraments happen in the spirit of individual decision of those straight involved, something completely different happens, something that makes the hair become oak on its head.

First confession, first Holy Communion, confirmation. The Sacraments of “school”, “yearbook” to which the Church has set a word from the top, which it grants massly comparing the religion and spirituality of thousands of people to 1 denominator. And while the first Holy Communion is happening even more at the will of parents than children and is experienced even more consciously and deeper, so confirmation - what it looks like present - is simply a misunderstanding and a failure throughout the line.

“The Sacrament of Farewell to the Church”, I think everyone knows these words. What? Nothing! Even priests know the name, realize where it came from. And woe, what's going on with this youth, why they leave right after confirmation... In the meantime, it is rather the opposite: if individual leaves the Church immediately after confirmation, then we have given the sacrament to the incorrect person!

What did the apostles do after their confirmation? They went out into the streets and preached to Jesus without fearing anyone or anything else on this earth! They began to talk in tongues, were not afraid to heal, were "transmitters" of God's Word and his power! The reception is simply a different “sacrate of Christian maturity”! Those accepting him receive the power of the Holy Spirit, or any fraction of God's power is laid in their hands and hearts from that minute on!

To whom do we present give the key to this power of God? We give it to just anyone! To unprovoked, unbelievers, coming for the sacrament of mass momentum! Does the CEO of a large company give access to corporate bank accounts to anyone who works a certain amount of time in the company? due to the fact that that's what confirmation looks like today: you're in this class, you're allowed to the sacrament!

It's time to halt throwing pearls in front of the pigs. It's time to end with confirmation in any schoolroom of any school or simple or secondary or other. Of course, in the catechesis program this sacrament and its meaning should stay so far (or alternatively all this needs to be worked out and improved), but acceptance of confirmation should stay solely in the individual hands of believers. If anyone wants, he feels ready, goes to the parish priest and asks for the sacrament. The parish priest checks, examines, examines, and then directs to the preparation of 1 or another, possibly for a course at the parish where all candidates for the sacrament could come, regardless of age, phase of life or social position.

After passing the exam in the parish priest, the candidate receives a certificate, the parish sends his data to the diocese. And the dioceses, in the cathedral, all second Sunday of the period the bishop admit all those who have been permitted to do so. And let no 1 be amazed that the ten-year-olds may be there, the eighth graders, the brides preparing for the ecclesiastical wedding, and the grandparents who acted in the organization in their youth and did not come to confirmation. This period it will be 1 person, the next thirty. But only then will we reconstruct the sacrament of confirmation to its rightful place in our way of faith, then only the Holy Spirit will be able to authentically act and “attract young people to the Church.”