The 2 Questions I Ask Confirmation Candidates

Now is the time of year when many Catholic teenagers in the Latin Rite find themselves in preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation.  This can be a difficult season for highschool youth ministers.

We have precious little time to work with the kids, so I’ve had to think hard about what I want to spend time on.  Today I want to look at the two questions I always ask our highschool confirmandees.

Question 1: Why be Catholic?

The first question is the simplest:

Why are you a Catholic?

 There is always an awkward silence in response.

Our modern Western culture treats religion as a matter of preference.  Not unlike one’s taste in movies.  There are all kinds of options and none of them is more correct than the others.

Similarly, some people like Christianity.  Others dabble in Buddhism. Who cares?  All that’s important is that our beliefs make us happy and we all get along!

Here’s an uncomfortable fact:  No one is going to make difficult sacrifices for what is ultimately a matter of preference. Those sorts of things get set aside the moment they become too inconvenient.

That’s why the one and only good reason to be Catholic is because the Catholic faith is true.  I tell students we should believe it is as factual as “the world is round”.  If not, the faith is a gigantic waste of time and effort.

The reaction I get is often one of surprise and confusion … some even take offense.  They’d been raised in Catholic households for 14 years and had never heard such a crazy idea.



Question 2: What is Confirmation?

Confirmation is usually postponed till early adulthood in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church.  This draws inevitable comparisons to bar mitzvahs and … sadly … graduations.

That is to say, many kids conceptualize it as either a coming of age ceremony or like getting a Catholic diploma (and now you’re done!).  Many parents likewise think of Confirmation as the point at which they’ve successfully raised their kids Catholic.  Now they too can be done.

What is Confirmation really?  I like to put it this way:

Confirmation is a Sacrament of anointing in which the Holy Spirit empowers you for ministry and martyrdom.

Every Catholic has a ministry, one way or the other.  It might be in the ordained ministry, evangelizing at work, or at home.  We’re all called to minister somewhere.

Similarly, we’re all called to suffer for the faith.  Most of us won’t have our heads cut off by ISIS, but we may lose friends for being vocally Pro-Life.  Some folks lose their businesses for conscience reasons.  Those who marry must sacrifice their personal autonomy on the altar of parenthood.  And so on.  We are all called to carry a cross.

Confirmation should be the day one officially gives up on being a respectable member of secular society.  It is the day one definitively sets out on the narrow road.

If it is a graduation, it is a graduation from med-school – now it’s off to work in the hospital.  Or it is a graduation from bootcamp – and now you’re going to battle.

Either way, Confirmation is not the end of something… it is the start of something