Confirmation

The sacrament of confirmation is the most challenging of all the sacraments to teach because there is a very real dilemma that many parishes and dioceses face today.

The field is divided into two primary camps: 1) those that consider confirmation a sacrament of initiation, and therefore hold that it should be with baptism and Eucharist, and 2) those that consider it a sacrament of Christian maturity, and therefore believe that the later the sacrament is administered, the better.

In the early church, confirmation was not a separate sacrament from baptism. This is the case because many adults entered the church and they received all three sacraments of initiation 1) baptism, 2) confirmation, and 3) Eucharist at the same time. This practiced changed in roughly the fourth century when Christians were so numerous that the bishop could not be at all the baptisms, so the priests baptized and the bishop later confirmed the baptism. Nevertheless, the sacrament has always been tied closely to the Holy Spirit and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The way the sacrament of initiation are celebrated in Eastern Rite Churches differs somewhat from our Western practice in the Roman Church. In many Eastern Churches, the three sacraments of Christian initiation are always celebrated together in the same celebration, even with infants. The sacrament we call confirmation is known as chrismation and is conferred by the one who baptizes, namely the priest. In the celebration, those being confirmed are anointed not only on the forehead but also on the eyes, nose, ears, lips, chest, back, hands, and feet.