Confirmation

Please use the form under Headline News to fill out the information needed to register your child to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.

St. James will prepare Catholics for the Sacrament of Confirmation beginning in the Fall of 2019.  Bishop Carl A. Kemme is coming to St. James the Greater on March 28, 2020 at the 5:00 pm Mass to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation for those in the 7th - 10th grades!

Dear Brothers and Sisters of St. James Catholic Church,

Today, I want to write to all of you, to tell you about a change in the way the Diocese of Wichita will celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation for youth.  Perhaps you read about it in a recent edition of the Catholic Advance. There, Bishop Kemme explained the need for the promulgation of new norms for our Diocese to follow.  You, yourselves know, the culture of the public forum presents many new, disturbing challenges for our youth.  Not long ago, I finished a book called iGen, written by a sociologist, who meticulously studied the affects of today’s culture on youth.  Needless to say, when I set the book down, it was absolutely clear that our youth deal with things today that did not exist even 10-20 years ago, nor were they ever imaginable.   St. Elizabeth Ann Seton said: “We know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life. We know that He gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are so weak on our own, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty."  In order to give our youth the spiritual fortification that is needed, the Bishop will lower the age of Confirmation.  Let me explain a little more.  

Our culture is becoming aggressively and radically secular, which means, we are creating a society without God.  Just a few weeks ago, Pope Emeritus Benedict wrote: “A society without God — a society that does not know Him and treats Him as non-existent — is a society that loses its measure. In our day, the catchphrase of God's death was coined. When God does die in a society, it becomes free, we were assured. In reality, the death of God in a society also means the end of freedom, because what dies is the purpose that provides orientation. And because the compass disappears that points us in the right direction by teaching us to distinguish good from evil. Western society is a society in which God is absent in the public sphere and has nothing left to offer it. And that is why it is a society in which the measure of humanity is increasingly lost. At individual points it becomes suddenly apparent that what is evil and destroys man has become a matter of course.”  

While the trajectory of our culture in the public forum is increasingly hostile to any kind of faith, the Good News of what Jesus said 2000 years ago provides hope: “I have overcome the world.” God’s light shines in the darkness.  St. John XXIII went so far as to say that “if God made shadows, it was better to emphasize the light.”  God has provided every means to meet every challenge through the sacramental life of the Church.  For this reason, many dioceses throughout the world, and now our own, are wisely lowering the age of Confirmation, so that our youth might receive the grace of the Sacrament earlier in life.  This will enable them to better meet the incredible obstacles they are facing today, with the grace of the Holy Spirit within them.  

This is a good time for us to rediscover the true meaning of Confirmation.  Some misunderstandings of the Sacrament of Confirmation have crept into our way of thinking over the last several years.  Many in the Church today perceive Confirmation as a kind of “Catholic graduation,” whereby a young person finally “takes the Faith and makes it their own.”  Our Faith is not something that we take ourselves, in that way.  It is a gift—something received.  God cannot be grasped, but rather, He grasps us.  St. John writes: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us…” (1 Jn 4:10). God always takes the first step, and we only receive and return what He gives us.

This is why Tradition (with a capital T) is so essential to Catholics.  The word Tradition comes from the Latin “tradere”, which means to “pass down” to “hand on”.  Our Christian Faith is something that we are given—Faith itself is a gift.  Confirmation is not a “Catholic diploma”, because a diploma is something earned.  Grace is a gift, something unmerited, and underserved.  As a young boy, I remember learning that the word Grace, also comes from the Latin word “gratia”, which means “free gift”.  My point is that Confirmation is a Grace, a gift, not something worked for or earned, like we would work for a diploma.  

Our Bishop, and many others, want our youth to receive this gift earlier, so that they can truly become fully alive as missionary disciples.  “Be who you were created to be, and you will set the world on fire.” (St. Catherine of Siena). In the Diocese of Wichita, Bishop Kemme will go to each parish, every other year for the Sacrament of Confirmation.  There will be little adjustment period for each parish to accomodate this change, and so the schedule will be: those entering grades 7-10 will be Confirmed on March 28, 2020.  In 2022, St. James will prepare 7-8 graders for Confirmation; and finally, in 2024 and every other year thereafter, we will have reached the goal of Confirming all those in 6-7 grades.

At the end of the day, what the Bishop desires, and what we all want for our youth, is something St. Ignatius of Antioch said many centuries ago: “I wish not merely to be called Christian, but also to be Christian."  While students will not earn the Sacrament, they do need to understand it.  Therefore, we will be enfolding study of the Sacrament of Confirmation into the already existing religious curriculum the students receive in our Catholic School.  St. James will do its best to also help prepare youth through a PSR program for the gift of the Holy Spirit they will soon receive!

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

In Christ’s Incarnate Love,
Fr. John N. Hay

"In a world gone astray from God there is no peace, but it also lacks charity, which is true and perfect love... Nothing is more beautiful than love. Indeed, faith and hope will end when we die, whereas love, that is, charity, will last for eternity."

— Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati