Prepare to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.

What is this Sacrament and why is it important?

Sacramentum - covenant oath swearing in God's Name

Covenant - I give myself to you, you give yourself to me --- God gives Himself to you and asks you to do the same in return

Different from contract

The Covenant establishes a Live-Giving Communion of Persons

Our hope and goal:

For you to learn more about our Catholic Faith so that, hopefully, you will continue to practice that Faith the rest of your lives.

Quinn found himself in a room not knowing how he had gotten there.  He was sitting on a chair in the room along with two other men.  He looked around and it appeared that they were in some kind of waiting room.  There were several empty chairs.  

The man to his left leaned over and said, "Hi and welcome!  I'm Ron,  You just got here but I've been here a little while.  Ethan was here before me," he said, indicating the man on his left.  Ethan waved and was about to speak when a voice was heard through a doorway that Quinn hadn't noticed before:  "Next one come in, please."

Ethan stood up, looked back and smiled at the other two, and then headed toward the doorway.

"If you haven't figured it out," Ron said, "We've died and we have to stop here to answer a question before we can get in."

"Get in?" Quinn asked.  "Get in where?" 

"Why, into Heaven, of course!" Ron said with a smile.

Quinn's head started spinning!  His stomach got all queasy and his throat tightened up!  "Answer questions to get into Heaven!" he thought to himself, "I'm sunk!  I don't know anything!"

"What kind of ques..." Quinn started to ask.  But the Ron said, "Shhhh!  Listen!  He's asking the question!"

They could hear the voice they had heard before from inside door ask, "The question for you is:  Who is Jesus Christ?"

Ron made a funny blowing sound and a nonchalant gesture with his hands. "Pffft!  No problem for that guy!" he said, "Ethan is - was - a biblical scholar!"

"Wow," Quinn said, "What are, I mean, what were you, I mean, before?"

"Well, I was actually Professor of Theology at a Catholic University," his companion said, a little smugly.

Quinn felt even worse.  "How about you?" Ron asked him.

But Quinn did not get to answer.  They both stopped to listen because Ethan, who had paused briefly after being asked the question "Who is Jesus Christ?" began to speak.  Actually, he give a speech!  He spoke eloquently of the Old and New Testaments and of covenants and bloodlines and genealogies all pointing to Jesus. His presentation amazed Quinn and he became more and more downhearted thinking about the things he just didn't know about Jesus Christ. 

Ron sitting next to him nodded with a pleased expression on his face as he listed to the "speech" in the other room.

When Ethan in the other room had completed his "speech," he stopped and was obviously waiting for a response.

The two in the waiting room looked at each other with astonishment when they heard the voice say, "I'm very sorry.  That was not the right answer."

Ethan gasped loudly.  Then there was the sound of another door opening.  The noises they heard that had to have been coming from the other side of that door were horrifying!  Screaming and yelling and what sounded like a huge forest fire could be heard.  Then there was the sound of the door shutting and there was silence.

"Next please," came the voice from the other room.  The two men stared at each other for a brief moment and then Ron stood up, walked toward the door standing up straight and, throwing his shoulders back, walked through the door into the other room.

After being asked the same question as his predecessor, Ron launched into an amazing theological teaching on the understanding of Jesus Christ by the Early Church Fathers, the deep mysteries and the Deposit of Faith held by The Church for over 2000 years.

Quinn left in the waiting room was again amazed at what he heard and he thought, "Surely this man will get in!" With this thought, held his head in his hands and felt like weeping at his ever growing sense of his own lack of knowledge!  And when, as you have probably already guessed, Ron received the same fate as the man before him, Quinn nearly fainted!

"Is anyone else out there?" came the voice from the other room.

"Just me, sir," the man said with an effort, his voice cracking.

"Please come in," said the voice.

The man stood up shakily and began walking toward the door.  It seemed to take an eternity to get there!  He was looking at his own feet as he stepped inside the room.  Then he lifted his eyes to look at the other person in the room.

He immediately fell to his knees and then to his face with his hands outstretched and declared, "JESUS!", "MY LORD! AND MY GOD!"

If Jesus came to your house today and asked you, "Who do you say that I am?" or "Do you recognize Me?" what would you say?

We talked about covenants last week and how they differ from contracts.  How, in a covenant, instead of just making a promise, you swear an oath using the name of God or of the Blessed Trinity: "So help me God" or "In the Name of Jesus" or "In the Name of The Father and The Son and The Holy Spirit."

And we talked about how this oath-swearing is where we get the root word for Sacrament.  

But what was the other part?

In a contract you exchange things or services or money.  In a covenant you exchange...right! Persons.  "I give myself to you and you give yourself to me."  

And, in our sacraments, God gives Himself to us and asks us to give ourselves to Him.

Is there anything that you think is keeping yourself from allow God to give Himself to you? 

Or that is keeping you from giving yourself completely to Him?

Jesus wants us to grow closer to Him

He asks us to become the best version of ourselves - to trust Him with our very lives.

”Jesus, I surrender all of this to You…Please take care of everything”.

Then let it go.  He will take care of it. 

Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic

If you were born with no legs and no arms, what would life be like?  

Think of all the things you do now that you couldn’t do.

We are all sinners and sometimes we mess up like Matthew Kelly discussed in the video last week

We might take a wrong turn in life… make a bad decision.  

Sometimes we make mistakes and do the wrong thing.  

The truth is we cannot become the best version of ourselves on our own.  

We need God’s help.  

We need grace!  

We cannot become the best version of ourselves without it.  

What is grace?  

It is the help God gives us to respond to His call, and to do what is good and right. 

I would call it soul food. 

In what part of your life do you needs God's Grace most today?

We need to be forgiven by God and others and we all have people we need to forgive!  

In the Lord's Prayer we pray "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."  

Whom is God calling you to forgive today?

What have we done that we need to be forgiven for?

We have another sacrament to help address forgiveness of ourselves and others - The Sacrament or Reconciliation.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of our greatest sources of Grace!

The peace that comes from having our sins forgiven is a peace the world cannot give!

Maybe you’re thinking, "I haven’t been to Reconciliation in a while."

I strongly urge you and your family to go to Reconciliation monthly or at least make sure to go during this Advent Season and the upcoming Lenten Season. 

The schedule is on the homepage of this website.

If you could perform one of Jesus' miracles today, what would it be?  

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Who is your favorite example from history of a person who has followed Jesus?