A few Sundays ago the young people preparing for confirmation at St Ignatius Parish here in Winnipeg were blessed and were given a small cross to wear to help them assume the responsibilities they will take on their shoulders personally on Pentecost Sunday and to give them strength and courage for the future.
We prayed the cross would help them be confirmed in their Faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!
Most of us have received the initiation sacraments, Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, some many many years ago. Easter is a good time to remember them. Years ago when we were baptized, our parents committed themselves to teach us the Faith by word and example.
Many others, godparents, siblings, friends, relatives, took part in that enterprise. After receiving the gift of the Eucharist to nourish us in the Way of Jesus, finally we too were Confirmed assuming personally the responsibility to live our Faith.
For me that was an important event. I remember standing in the back of our little onion domed church in St Peter’s Colony (near Kronau, Saskatchewan) in 1953 waiting for Archbishop O’Neill. He had to plow through muddy country roads to get there! Everything was a little late.
But a thought went through my ten year old head then: “I really want to be a soldier of Christ”. Through the years I reaffirmed that same sentiment at different stages of my life even to the present day. And as I witnessed these young disciples of Jesus put the crosses around their necks, I did so again!
Easter is a good time, not only to remember our sins, but also to remember our Initiation Sacraments, Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, and God’s never failing mercy through the years even to this present moment.