By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Confirmation season is upon us, and once again we face the prospect in its aftermath of watching some of our young people fall away from practice of their faith in attending Sunday Mass on a regular basis.
This phenomenon has been rued for years by bishops, priests, faith formation leaders, catechists, and parents as well. As a result, various creative solutions have been implemented with varying results.
Our young people are often confirmed around the eighth grade at the same time as they look forward to beginning high school a few months hence. This has led to a tendency in which Confirmation has been viewed as a “must have” in connection with the other rituals surrounding the transition from middle school to high school. Some parishes have changed the Confirmation age to ninth grade in order to remove it from this graduation mentality. It is thought that a more serene approach after the beginning of high school and after the graduation excitement has abated can facilitate better focus and the opportunity to see the sacrament as leading to a continued faith experience through the high school phase and into adulthood.
The anticipation characteristic of the beginning of the high school experience will eventually abate somewhat and, at times, even new high school students will need the encouragement and support of active parenting to get them up and going and out the door in order to remain faithful to their commitment to stay in and to finish high school. In the same way, though they have been confirmed with the graces to grow into a mature Christian adult, they will all the same continue to be in need of the active encouragement and support of their parents, especially that of witness as the parents commit to attending Sunday Mass themselves together with family prayer and Christian life.
Grace builds on nature. The graces we receive in all the sacraments do not “override” our free will because God never approaches us in order to force our choices, as if to strong arm us into loving and spending time with Him. No, God, who gave us the free will necessary for authentic love, deeply respects our free will and always offers grace as a means of using our will in cooperation with Him for our salvation.
Parents must be reminded that in the same way that their children’s resolve to attend Mass may flag in high school, even with all the good it has to offer, so in the same way the day may come, whether on Sunday or holy days, when their children may need help to cooperate with God’s grace and to bring themselves to recall their Confirmation and to recommit to the walk of faith and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist as a privilege not to be missed.
I asked our Confirmation candidates to do two projects which would enable them to lead others in faith and to step out of their comfort zones and learn something new about worship. They were tasked with setting up a prayer place in a common area of the home and leading their family in prayer. They were also to take a photo of the experience. They also learned to pray the Our Father in Latin and then prayed it together with the parish during their Confirmation liturgy.
The ability to witness faith by leading others in its expression and to learn elements of our traditional worship can open the eyes of our young people to new insights about their own potential and the great variety of riches in the prayer and worship of the Church.
As I took part in a beautiful Mass at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary last week in connection with the graduation of a college seminarian friend, I reflected on the beauty of the hymns, the organ, the voices in song and the chapel. All of these factors came together to bring a profound spirit of worship, an experience of dignity as a baptized member of the Body of Christ and an unearthly joy in faith.
I also reflected on the fact that these worked together so effectively because they are built on a lifetime of worship in many different places — singing these and other hymns and learning how to pray the Mass through long experience. I then also reflected on the tragedy that happens when people are closed off from all of these gifts and the graces they bring because they have not been privileged to share consistently in the life of the Church.
It is a great sadness to think that so many in the Church may live most of their lifetimes never discovering the joy of living faith through the means of intense participation in the liturgical life of the Church.
As I sang the hymns and enjoyed the acoustic effects of my voice together with those of others, the beauty of the music in particular enabled me to both express my faith in the act of worship, to witness it, and to grow in it. Consistently offering such opportunity for worship at Mass each Sunday is a grave obligation on the part especially of our parents.
Consistent practice of the faith within the communio of the Church is a support for all of our young people in their own need to get to know the Lord and to have a relationship with Him which will give them the strength and conviction to continue to meet Him through word and sacrament after their Confirmation and into adulthood. One cannot give what one does not have: It all begins with parents who practice their own faith and invite their children to do the same consistently and generously.
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(Follow Fr. Cusick on Facebook at Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick and on Twitter @MCITLFrAphorism.)
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