Parish the Thought by John Bernard Ruane

Author:John Bernard Ruane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

Chapter Eighteen

CONFIRMATION

OF FAITH

Confirmation day is a very important and special day for every Catholic, as they become “soldiers of Christ.” It is the day, in my mind, when I became mature in my faith. I was old enough to say “Yes, I do believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. I do believe in Jesus Christ the Most High. I do believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

These are important declarations indeed.

When I was in second grade preparing for my First Holy Communion and the nuns told us what to say, no one gave it a second thought. The nuns told us what to believe and how to say it, so we did. But as a sixth-grader, we were old enough to start thinking for ourselves. That is why I think this is such an important day in the lives of Catholic youths.

Someone could argue a sixth-grader would never tell his mother or father he didn’t believe in the declarations of the Nicene Creed and wasn’t going to participate in the Confirmation. That’s probably true. But I never heard any of my classmates rejecting the ceremony or commitment to the language of the declarations. As I prepared for Confirmation, I knew in my heart that I did believe.

The Church has a tradition in which each Confirmation candidate must select a sponsor. This is a person who would stand with the prospective soldier through the process. We were told it should be someone who is a good Catholic role model: a leader, a person to whom we looked up.

A good number of my friends chose relatives—aunts, uncles, older brothers. The only two relatives I had in the area never attended Mass, so they weren’t a consideration. No, for me, there were only two choices. It would either be Johnny Mackey or Mark Janek, two older boys I admired. Both had been altar boys. I thought Johnny would be the best choice because his family seemed especially devout. His father was a member of the Pilgrim Virgin, the Catholic organization that brought the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary into homes where friends and neighbors could honor Mary by praying together as a community for one week.

Johnny was the older brother of Tommy Mackey, one of my best friends when I was younger. Johnny and Tommy looked like brothers, both skinny boys and about the same height. Hanging around with the Mackey boys was always a hoot because of their older brother–younger brother “fight until you give” relationship. It seemed like Tommy and Johnny used to go at it all the time when I was at their house. Those two would get into fights for no reason at all. We would be sitting in their bedroom on a Saturday afternoon watching a college football game while their mother was in the living room, listening to the soundtrack from West Side Story, when a scene like this would occur:

Tommy and I would be talking about our favorite

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