Some brilliant (or swift) priest in Arkansas took the optimal blogspot name . He has coverage ("Thursday morning thru 4:30") of discussion by heavyweights of sacramental and liturgical theology about the meaning and status of Confirmation. Any thoughts?
My two cents is that we need better formation and a forum for a mature profession of faith. I also wonder if we have lost some sense of discernment about the gifts of the Holy Spirit among us. I will say, however, that it is my experience (and this is confirmed by certain incidents in Acts) that the Spirit blows where it wills and that the gifts of the Spirit are conferred during Baptism, making the pneumatological significance of Confirmation somewhat less imperative from a practical standpoint. I still think it has symbolic value if the process leading up to Confirmation is about making a mature profession of faith and doing some discernment of those gifts and how they might build up the Body.
4 comments:
I'm for the Eastern (and I might earlier Western) practice that Chrismation/Confirmation should happen at Baptism. The significance of both dying and rising with Christ and being anointed by the Spirit should go together. Our Pneumatology tends to be weaker, and this shores up the understanding that our salvation is by both Hands of God (as Nyssa put it).
And BTW: Dr. Weil is my beloved liturgy professor. A fine, faithful, thoughtful liturgical theologian and historian, and "family"--if you know what I mean. From what I know of him, his views on Confirmation are similar to my own.
Well, these kinds of disputes end up getting down to issues of episcopal ministry more than anything else. There's just something about Bishops and Confirmation.
I, like all recent Episcopal baptized, was chrismated at Baptism but not confirmed.
Dr. Weil, of course, is right insofar as he is quoted correctly here.
Post a Comment