Rectors Reflections October 2005

“What ever happened to Confirmation?”

“ What ever happened to Confirmation?” This question was posed to me after the Youth Focus Sunday on September 25, when six of our young people – Emma Cook, Alex Griffith, Tom Griffith, Thomas Kinsey, Lucky Middaugh, and Rachel Smith, participated in a liturgy of public commitment to Christian Discipleship. At that service, they were not Confirmed, which is the Laying-on-of-Hands by a Bishop, but rather, they agreed to begin on the journey towards becoming mature, adult Christians someday.

For many years, and when I was growing up, Confirmation was the liturgy at which young people, of about 12 or 13 years, made their public affirmation of their faith. In recent years, however, many Bishops and Dioceses (including the Diocese of Western Michigan) have decided that Confirmation should be an adult affirmation of faith and renewal of baptismal vows, generally done only with young persons at least sixteen years or older. It was decided that Confirmation of a twelve year old child might be done more because of parental pressure than by choice of the child.

This change in Confirmation age, while making good sense in terms of adult commitment, has left something of a vacuum in the faith life and development of our youth. Twelve or thirteen has always been a transitional age for young people, in most societies, which recognize that teenagers are no longer children but beginning to move into young adulthood. Judaism has long recognized the need for a rite of passage at that age. Thirteen year old boys and girls participate in their Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah, which signals their admission into the adult worshiping community. Jesus was twelve when his parents took him to the temple to worship. Other cultures and societies have also had similar rites of passage for this age group.

It may well be that Confirmation is not the best liturgy to use for a rite of passage from childhood. Nonetheless, it became evident to me that we needed to meaningfully engage our six young people at this transitional time in their lives, by asking them to make their first public, but personal, affirmation of faith and intention for growth. This is what they did at the service on September 25. It is my hope, that their growth over the next few years, will lead them to invite Jesus into their lives daily, and will plant in them a desire to confirm their faith journey and their participation in the Episcopal Church with the Laying-on-of-Hands by our Bishop someday. Many of us, when that time comes, may want to reaffirm our baptismal vows, with the Laying-on-of-Hands on our heads too. Take a look at the Prayer Book, pages 310 and 413, to understand more of this.

In the meantime, we will be regularly reaffirming our Baptismal Vows in this community. The next occasion will on November 6, when we celebrate All Saints’ Day. Perhaps you would like to make October a time of reflection and preparation for that day, so that you might enter into the liturgy with greater understanding and joy.

Our prayer unites us.

Meredith