Abstract:
In Matthew's Gospel, one reads that in speaking to his disciples for the last time Jesus entrusts them with the great commission to "Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you?" In doing so, Jesus instructed his followers to preach his Gospel to all nations, to celebrate the sacraments and to teach in his name; a mission that would undoubtedly take a considerable amount of time. Jesus promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to empower and guide them on this mission; the Spirit who would guide them into all truth (Jn 16:13). The effects of the outpouring of the Spirit on the disciples is clearly seen in Acts 2, where the disciples evangelise powerfully, with the result being that "that very day about three thousand were added to their number" (Acts 2:41). This mission entrusted to the first disciples continues in the Church today, with every confirmed believer having the duty to be a witness for Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. While in the history of the Church, there has been a tendency to assign this duty of evangelisation solely to the clergy, there has emerged of late, and especially in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the realisation that all of Christ's faithful have the duty of bringing Jesus to the world by virtue of their Confirmation. It is thus not surprising that there has been much attention given to the sacrament of Confirmation over the last number of decades in an attempt to revitalise and deepen the understanding and celebration of this sacrament. While these efforts have yielded much good, on the other hand, they have also produced confusion and misunderstanding, with some even going so far as to term Confirmation the "mystery sacrament" or the "sacrament in search of a theology." This paper will show that indeed the opposite is in fact rue, that Confirmation has a rich history that dates back to the very first followers of Jesus, as recorded in Scripture. It will be pointed out that while the manner in which the sacrament of Confirmation is celebrated has changed over the ages and from place to place, it is a fact that a ceremony or rite for the conferral of the Holy Spirit on those already baptised has been part and parcel of Christian theology and practice rom the foundation of the Church. Part of the misunderstanding surrounding Confirmation is that its connection to Baptism has not always been clearly stated. It will be explained that Baptism, among other things, inserts Christians into the Church as individuals who can draw life from Jesus Christ, while Confirmation inserts the baptised into the visible Church with the duty to participate in the Church's collective mission of bringing the salvation offered through Jesus to the world. The task of this paper will be to undertake a study of various sources of theological data, including Sacred Scripture, Church History, the writings of the Church Fathers and other Theologians, as well as the pronouncements of the Magisterium, in order to arrive at a modern synopsis of the theology of Confirmation, one that it is hoped will be credible to the contemporary Christian while at the same time remaining true to the age-old faith of the Church
