1. - The confirmation carries out some problems. For many people it is something of the past, but that didn’t have any importance. Almost nothing is recalled. Social pressure exists but less than in other sacraments. A paradox is acknowledged: by one side, the will is to abandon serial confirmations (by ages, catechesis years, scholar courses), which automatism fits too much in the social rites; by the other side, alive communities offering shelter and evangelisation progress to those confirming, are not present. Without an evangelisation process and without a community the rite converts itself in an empty ritualism, Talking about ages, in the past it was at seven years old, later it went to the fourteen and to the eighteen, and now we are coming back. Background problems are also detected in the adult age and in the ecumenical dialog, some of them very deep: What is it? Is it an added secondary sacrament? Is it necessary? Is it in the disappearance track? Should it unite or divide the Christians?.
2. - It is necessary to go to the history data. In fact, to establish the confirmation like an autonomous sacrament took a lot of time (more than one millennium). Nevertheless, during the first centuries, confirmation is considered like the baptism’s coronation and plentifulness: “it generally constitutes a single celebration with the baptism, and with it conforms, according to Saint Cyprians expression, a double sacrament”. Later on things change. In the Western the fact of conferring the plentifulness of baptism, what afterwards will be called confirmation, is reserved to the bishop. In the Eastern Church both sacraments are kept together: the same presbyter who baptizes delivers confirmation. They are two different traditions: Eastern churches practices point out more the unity of Christian initiation. That of the Latin Church expresses more neatly the communion of the new Christian with his bishop” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1290 y 1292).
3. - In the origin, christian initiation culminated in two inseparable moments, normally celebrated one after the other, in the frame of the Christian community presided by the bishop. They are the Baptism and the Eucharist. The baptism is the sacrament of the faith: He who believes and is baptized will be saved (Mk 16,16). It is not a magic act, it is the fruit of the evangelisation process that has these constants: acknowledgment of Jesus like the Lord, conversion to the Gospel justice, forgiveness on the part of God, the gift of the spirit, teaching, communion, bread fraction (eucharist), prayer, signals, property sharing, incorporation to the community. That who converts himself to the Gospel and is baptized receives all this. Peter proclaims it in the Pentecost day: Each of you must repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins may be forgiven. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit… and every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2, 38-47).
4. - Faith confession is centred in Jesus person, History’s Lord. Baptism is delivered in the name of Jesus. Besides, baptism means conversion. We renounce to the unbelief to live in the faith, id est, under God’s function. It is so overcome the original pretension of the sinner: to be like God, without God (Gn 3,5). Baptism is also celebrated in the spirit dynamics: No one may say: Jesus is the Lord, except by the Holy Spirit (1 Co 12,3). And also: The Spirit assures our spirit that we are children of God (Rm 8,16). According to the experience of the first Christians, this fact is not always noticed. Paul is in Ephesus with some disciples who have been baptized only with water (Rm 19,1-7;Mk 1,8). And those baptizes by Philip in Samaria are confirmed by the apostles Peter and John (Acts 8, 14-17). We may acknowledge (in the spirit) that Jesus is the Lord (Paschal experience) and, nevertheless, not being strong enough to be his witness. That is the situation that the disciples are living before Pentecost. The Lord tells them: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem (Acts 1,8). Besides, according to Jesus promise, the disciples receive a deep understanding of the faith, the whole true (Jn 14, 26; 16,13). In the letter to the Hebrews between the first elements to the christian initiation, the baptism doctrine and the hands imposition, by which the spirit’s gift is communicated, are recalled (Hb 6,2). Finally, faith experience is shared in community. The community is the body of Christ (1 Co 12,27): All of us have been baptized in one Spirit to form one body (1 Co 12,13; see Eph 5,25).
5. - From the third century on, initial baptism rites are developed. Little by little, around the water rites appear preparation rites (hands imposition, oleo unction, cross signal, minister blowing on the baptized, ect) and prolongation rites, which largely repeat the preceding ones (hands imposition, unction, cross signal, ect). The rites prolonging the water rite do not really add anything new to the meaning of the baptismal initiation in the New Testament. They only insist in some of the aspects. Let us see the most important ones.
6. - Hands imposition mean, usually, the gift of the spirit. It is not a magic act. In some sense, the gift of the spirit is the fruit of the apostolic minister and of the prayer that hopes Jesus promise (Acts 1,14). Spirit’s gifts are cited in the rituals: A Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and power, a Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord (Is 11,2). The Acts of the Apostles passages presenting the hands imposition entailed to the spirit communication are also cited (Acts 8,9-24; 19,1-7). Here are some of the third century testimonies: “Hand is imposed upon us invoking and attracting on us the holy spirit by the prayer that accompanies this sacred rite” (Tertulian, Baptism treaty), “Those baptized in the church are presented to the heads of the church so that they receive the holy spirit by our prayer and the hand imposition (Cyprians, letter 73,9), “The Lord, by the bishop’s hands imposition in the baptism, has given testimony to each one of you and he allowed the listening upon you of his saint voice: You are my son, I have conceived you”(Didascalia of the Apostles II,32).
7. - The unction has the same meaning than the hands´ imposition. The New Testament does not mention the oil unction. The Old Testament does: kings and priests are anointed (1Sa 16,13; Lev 8, 12), but the prophets are not (1R 19,19). Here are some fourth century testimonies: “After the bath you have received, you have gone to the bishop. What has he told you? God the almighty Father who made you to be born from the water and the spirit, forgiving your sins, he himself anoints you for the eternal life. Do not prefer this life to that one” (Ambrosias, About the Sacraments, II,24), “You have converted yourself into anointed when you received the symbolic mark of the holy spirit… Admitted to this unction, you are named Christians and your regeneration justifies this name” (Cyril of Jerusalem, mistagogic Catechesis, III, 1, 5), “You will finish (the baptism) with the oleo. The oleo is the stamp of the compromises” (Apostolic Constitutions, Syria).
8. - The signal of the cross or signation makes reference to Christ, to whom God anointed with the strength of the spirit and to whom they killed hanging him from a beam. The strength of the spirit is needed to assume Jesus cross: “Those baptized in the Church are presented to the Church’s heads… in order to be completed by the Lord´s signal” (Cyprians, Letter 73,9), “The signal of the cross converts into kings to all who have been regenerated in Christ” (Pope Leon, Sermon 4,1). Roman liturgy from the fourth century (gelasian Sacramento) accompanies the signal of the cross on the forehead (made then at the same time than the unction) with the formula: Cross signal for the eternal life.
9. - From the third century on, children baptism generalizes and the worship places appear everywhere. The bishop, then, cannot preside over all the baptismal celebrations. Two solutions are adopted. In the Eastern, at least from the fourth century on, the priest carries out the whole initiation. In the Western (fifth and sixth centuries) baptismal initiation rites are separated into two celebrations. The priest administers the water baptism and carries out some posterior rites. when it is possible for him, the bishop intervenes in the frame of a new celebration with this rites: Hand’s imposition, new unction (on the forehead of the baptized) and the signation. From the fifth century this second celebration is named confirmation. Likewise, the unction and the signation are united in a single rite. We talk, then, of consignation (Innocence’s letter to Decencies) and, later on, we talk of crismation.
10. - In the twelfth century Roman Pontifical appears by first time the formula that, later on, became common: I mark you with the signal of the cross and I confirm you with the chrism of the salvation. Thomas of Aquinas (1225-1274) points out the community importance of the confirmation, by which the Holy Spirit is communicated to the baptized in order to strengthen him to give testimony of Christ and to fight against the evil. Faith profession subscribed by the legacies of Michel Paleologo (1274) Eastern Emperor affirms that there are “seven sacraments”. Florence Council (1439) precise the confirmation effect: “Holy Spirit is given to the Christians, like he was given to the Apostles in Pentecost, to give them strength to confess with courage the name of Christ”. In the Western, the confirmation ordinary minister is the bishop. Nevertheless, Trent’s Council (1547) does not condemn the practice of the Eastern Churches. For the reformed the confirmation is not an autonomous sacrament, it is a baptism ratification and it is related to the rite of hands´ imposition.
11. - If it is not an empty rite, the confirmation spreads in the Church the Pentecost grace: Jesus´ promise is accomplished, the gift of the spirit. It is a new and decisive fact, announced by the prophet Joel (3,1-5), the signal that the “ultimate times” have arrived. God’s promises are fully accomplished: God gives to men everything; he gives them his spirit. The second Vatican Council presents the confirmation in this manner: the baptized “are more tightly entailed to the church, they grow with a special strength of the Holy Spirit, and in this way they are obliged with a larger compromise to spread and defend the faith, with their words and their way of life, like true Christ witnesses” (LG 11).
12. - In the Eastern like in the Western, chrismal sign is practiced for centuries, representing, in some way, the hands imposition carried out by the Apostles. In the new Ritual of the Confirmation (1971) Paul VI confirms the practice of the chrismal sign, preferring like formula, not the one used by the Latin Church, but the own of the Byzantine rite, in which the gift of the spirit, the grace of Pentecost is expressly mentioned: By this signal receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit (DCN).
13. - The confirmation, says the Council, has “an intimate relationship with all the Christian initiation” (SC71). It is a milestone of that. Christian initiation is developed in a process with diverse steps and milestones: first evangelisation, cathecumenate or catechesis, baptism, confirmation, eucharist. Christian mystery cannot be wholly captivated in a unique act, all at once. It takes time. If the baptism is the decisive frame, the important turn of a human life in front of the Gospel, the confirmation and the eucharist are its end and culmination. Christian initiation shows us the decisive moments of our relationship with God. The initiated is a believer who has been made able of understanding that God and Christ’s spirit is the Church’s spirit too. The spirit’s gift places the initiated in the Church’s heart.
14. - The second Vatican Council establishes the restoration of the adults cathecumenate, “divided into several degrees” (SC 64), what has been reflected in th Adults Christian Initiation Ritual (1972). With it, the Eastern as well as in the Western, adults Christian initiation begins with their entrance in the cathecumenate, to reach the culmination in a single celebration of the three sacraments: baptism, confirmation and eucharist (see the Catholic Church Catechism, 1232-1233).
15. - During the first centuries, initiation presumes the integration in the community, but also the acknowledgment of the grace given to others in another contexts. It is Peter’s experience in Cornelius´ home (Acts 10). The gift of the spirit unifies and singularises making possible the Christian global experience. It is a unique challenge, unity and diversity. Initiation cannot be a simple absorption, informing annexation. Communion is pluralist. From the beginning, the spirit’s language itself, the proclamation of God’s wonders, is expressed in diverse languages and cultures. (Acts 2,4.11).
16. - Faith experience is not abstract. It entails moments of plenitude, which impresses the life. It is like a meeting with so high communication quality that, after it, we are not the same. Like the beginning of a love, with the strong impression of the new and the mysterious aspects. Like a personal or collective event that enthusiasms and surprises like a signal of Jesus, history’s Lord, presence. Like a long conjugal fidelity that deepens and purifies the love values settling them very deep in the heart. Like a disgrace, the death of a loved being, that makes less firm the floor we stand on, but we then perceive the signal of his mysterious presence, we overcome the sadness, and we follow on. Like the birth of a new baby at home, that fills of happiness the parents and opens unknown ways for a further sheltering and comprehension. Like a politic compromise that does not agree with an unjust society and that launches us to the construction of a more just and fraternal world.
17. - In some sense, Christian initiation supposed, we have many times the need to be confirmed. In the Psalm it is requested: Give me a new and upright spirit (Ps 51,12). Peter is charged with this function: Confirm your brethren (Lk 22,32). The Lord confirms with signals the word pronounced by the disciples (Mk 16,20). Paul travels through Syria and Cilice confirming or consolidating the churches (Acts 15, 41). In any case, it is God the one who comforts us together with you in Christ, the one who anointed us, and the one who marked us with his stamp and gave us the spirit in deposit in our hearts (1Co ??).
* Dialogue upon the confirmation:
· it is coronation and plainness of the baptism
· it is the baptism ratification
· it is Pentecost grace, the gift of the spirit
· there are different ecclesial traditions
· the evangelisation process is the important thing
· the evangelisation has different steps and milestones
· it is necessary to recover the ecclesial conscience of Christian initiation