Author name: Molly Hostetler

Francis de Sales helps us identify exactly how temptations to particular sins work and how to successfully resist them. He identifies three steps in the process of temptation. First, sin is proposed to the soul. Then, we are either pleased or displeased by the proposal. Finally, we consent to or reject the temptation to sin.

Even though it may not be accompanied by the same visible signs as the first Pentecost and the first Confirmations, since Confirmation is our own personal Pentecost it effects a dramatic transformation of our lives. It does this by completing the grace of our Baptism, raising us to spiritual maturity, empowering us with mature spiritual responsibility, and imprinting a new sacramental character on our souls.

In order to convey the mysteries of our salvation, the sacred liturgy uses signs and symbols which are visible revelations of the invisible realities of the mysteries which are being experienced and presented to us. The art, architecture, music, and linguistic poetics of the Mass are meant to raise the congregation in a united heart and mind of praise, worship, honor, and glory given to God. In order for these concrete signs, which include the gestures and movements of the sacred ministers and the vestments and sacred vessels used, to “lift up our hearts,” they must be beautiful, in order to inspire awe in the presence of the love, light, and majesty of God.

For a brief moment in September 2010, John Henry Newman caught the attention of the world. As Pope Benedict XVI declared him “blessed,” during an apostolic visit to England, Newman’s conversion story was once again newsworthy, as it had been a century and a half before.

The sacred mysteries that we experience in the sacred liturgy, and to which we unite ourselves through an active interior participation in the sacraments, also unite us with the great act of love and salvation worked by Jesus, the Paschal mystery. As Gaudium et Spes states, “The Christian is certainly bound both by need and by duty to struggle with evil through many afflictions and to suffer death; but, as one who has been made a partner in the Paschal mystery, and as one who has been configured to the death of Christ, he will go forward, strengthened by hope, to the resurrection.”

When we think of “teachers” today, we imagine people working in brick-and-mortar schools—with classrooms, mass-produced books, and very young students segregated by age. But there is little evidence that any such institutions existed in the age of the early Fathers. In those early centuries, persecution would have made such gatherings difficult or impossible.

The Sacrament of Confirmation in both forms of the Roman Rite do not differ drastically. This sacrament should be administered within the context of Mass, but the extraordinary form commonly celebrates Confirmation, just like Matrimony, outside of and preceding Mass.