Confirmation
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In this sacrament we receive the Holy Spirit and become adult members of the Catholic Church.
Who Can Receive this Sacrament?
“Every baptized person not yet confirmed can and should receive the sacrament of Confirmation”
In this diocese it is normally conferred at year 9 or about age 13, and any baptised person older than that should also receive it.
Candidates for Confirmation have a sponsor. This can be a Godparent.
The preparation programme for Confirmation in our parish begins in December for candidates who are in at least year 9 at school. Candidates meet at St Austin’s and at Wheeler Hall in Leeds. During the programme, they discuss their faith and enjoy the benefits of meeting other teenagers who are faith minded.
Adults being received or baptised into the church receive it at the same time as Reception or Baptism. Special arrangements can be made for other adults who have not yet been confirmed.
Get in touch via the contact page or check the parish Newsletter.
What is Confirmation?
In the first centuries Confirmation generally comprised one single celebration with Baptism, forming with it a "double sacrament," according to the expression of St. Cyprian. Among other reasons, the multiplication of infant baptisms all through the year, the increase of rural parishes, and the growth of dioceses often prevented the bishop from being present at all baptismal celebrations. In the West the desire to reserve the completion of Baptism to the bishop caused the temporal separation of the two sacraments.
….It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of Confirmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost….. It gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross….. Like Baptism which it completes, Confirmation is given only once, for it too imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, the "character," which is the sign that Jesus Christ has marked a Christian with the seal of the Sprit by clothing him with power from on high so that he may be his witness-
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Contact by e-mail or phone can be made via the Contact Page- click on the top menu.
