From the Pastor’s Desk

: As we continue in the new normal. Things really do feel better as we begin our fourth week in the classrooms, person to person teaching both here in our grade school and at the high school. I have had auditions for the theater. There will not be a musical, but short plays with a limited number of students in each of them. We will be working on character, and what I call speaking quality. Here in the parish we are beginning sacramental preparation for the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Confirmation. When I was growing up, we had very little or no preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation. Depending upon the size of our parishes, the bishop may have only come every three years, thus Confirmation was given at all different ages. I personally received the sacrament when I was in the eighth grade. The Sacrament of Confirmation is a special event in the life of an individual Catholic and the entire parish family. Its’ call and grace confirm discipleship. The gifts of the Holy Spirit help to form the Christian more fully in the image of Jesus Christ. We use the term, an adult Catholic, within the Church with all the responsibilities that parents had accepted when they asked to have their son or daughter baptized. Thus Vatican II decreed that the rite of the sacrament be revised, that those receiving the sacrament be fully educated so that its’ connection with the whole church and the rite of Christian Initiation be understood. As early as the 7th Century, the post baptismal anointing with Sacred Chrism by the bishop became the regular practice in the Western Roman Catholic Church. Medieval theologians saw Confirmation as a gift of the Holy Spirit for the strengthening of the candidate’s inner life and social witness. By the 16th Century, the general practice after the Tridentine reforms was to confirm, as an affirmation or public profession, the baptismal commitment that had been made by parents and godparents at the time of Baptism. Following Vatican II, two major understandings and approaches to the sacrament of Confirmation became accepted. The importance of Confirmation as a part of the RCIA with the Easter Vigil, and the maturity model as a person becomes more active within the Church, using their gifts and talents for the building up of God’s Kingdom. Over the past three years our Diocese has been working with the parishes to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation in the eighth grade and here at St. Agnes Cathedral we are now at that point. Last Sunday Iris Bounds met with young people and their parents as we have begun the prayer/study/spiritual growth for the celebration of the Sacrament in February, 2021. Please keep all our young people in prayer as they prepare to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Confirmation.