I give credit to Father Robert Barron for his insight into
the Ascension of Our Lord readings:
Confirmation Day Comments to Sponsors
It’s finally here, Confirmation Day, the day we have been
preparing for all year! I’d like to introduce the Confirmation teachers
to you: Don Holloway, Kathy Houle, & Johnna Makuch. We work as a team
for the benefit of our students with the Oneight Confirmation program and the
EDGE middle school youth ministry. Father Mathew Illikattil is our pastor
at SJB and Deacon Louis Zemlick is our deacon. (Candidates introduce themselves
and then their sponsors.)
Thank you, sponsors, for taking on this very important role
in the lives of these young people. It is our responsibility to bring our
children to Jesus. Don’t minimize the role that God has given you as a
sponsor. God has significantly put you in the life of this teen.
He’s called you into relationship with them. Continue to pray in a
special way for your candidate, look for ways to give gifts and encouragements
that brings them back to their faith. If it’s possible, you can help them
get to Mass on weekends or to Reconciliation at least 2x a year. Your
witness, the life you lead, will help them to be more faith-filled.
This afternoon’s Mass is called “Ascension Sunday.” Today we
celebrate the Ascension of Jesus. We profess in the Apostle’s Creed that we
believe, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the
Father.” So, what does this have to do with us? Heaven for Jews is the realm of
God and angels which touches earth, each influences the other. We say in the
Our Father “...thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven.” This means, “May the ways of heaven invade the ways of earth and that
God may reign here as thoroughly as he does in heaven. The Ascension is the
beginning of heaven and earth coming together.
In the first reading, in the Acts of the Apostles we hear
Jesus talking about bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. This Christian
revolution is meant to flood the whole world and the Church that Jesus
established is the vehicle. Jesus tells the apostles to go to Jerusalem and
wait for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. With the spirit of Jesus in them
they will continue the process to bring heaven to earth and earth to heaven.
They will become agents of this reconciliation of heaven and earth. “You will
receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The
apostles go all over the known world with the Gospel message. When Jesus
disappears, something of earth has been taken into the dimension of heaven. The
coming of Earth and heaven has commenced.
Next week, in the feast of Pentecost, in the decent of the
Holy Spirit; heaven comes to earth. The ascent of Jesus’ body into heaven and
the decent of the Holy Spirit from heaven are related. They both speak of the
reconciliation that Jesus won for us. All of the architecture in our churches
is meant to elevate us to heaven and bring heaven to us. At the end of the
first reading, two angels ask the apostles, “Why are you standing there looking
at the sky?” Basically, they are saying, “Stop standing around and get to
work!” This Feast of the Ascension is the beginning of our commission as
Christians to reconcile heaven and earth. We are to get to work! It’s the
perfect Mass to celebrate a Confirmation, don’t you think?
This Confirmation is the beginning, not the end, of your
Catholic education. If you stop here, you will have about a second grade
education in Theology. How are you going to continue to live your Catholic
faith?
These things you MUST do once you’re Confirmed:
1) The most important thing that you
absolutely must do now that you will be Confirmed is to go to weekly Mass.
That’s where you receive the sanctifying grace you will need to be a
witness. And, there’s so much about the liturgy of the Mass that you
don’t yet know.
2) The second most important thing you must
do now that you will be Confirmed is to go to Reconciliation... often (once a
month, at least once a quarter). Sin acts like a barrier that cuts you
off from your source of strength: the Holy Spirit. Those of you who wear
glasses, have you ever taken your glasses off after wearing them all day and
thought, “I can’t believe I could really see anything. My glasses are
filthy!” That’s what sin does to us in our lives. It slowly cuts us
off. We don’t even realize it’s happening. All we know is that we
don’t feel close to God. He seems so distant and you feel so alone.
Pretty soon you forget to pray at all unless there’s an emergency or a
crisis. Go to Reconciliation.
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