Confirmation

“Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peace be with you.”

Confirmation is the completion of the sacrament of Baptism by which the Holy Spirit is imparted in a special way for the strengthening of the believer. “By the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.” (Lumen Gentium 11; cf. Rite of Confirmation, Introduction, 2)

(Lumen Gentium 11; cf. Rite of Confirmation, Introduction, 2)

Confirmation, together with Baptism and Eucharist, form the Sacraments of Initiation that are all intimately connected. In the Sacrament of Confirmation, the baptized person is “sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit” and is strengthened for service to the Body of Christ.

The prophets of the Old Testament foretold that God’s Spirit would rest upon the Messiah to sustain his mission… Before he died, Jesus promised that the Spirit would be given to the Apostles and to the entire Church. After his death, he was raised by the Father in the power of the Spirit. The New Testament reports many manifestations of the Holy Spirit… St. John’s Gospel describes an outpouring of the Spirit on Easter night when Jesus breathed on the Apostles and said, “Receive the holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22). St. Luke’s Acts of the Apostles gives another account of the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ (cf. Acts 2). – US Catholic Catechism for Adults, pg 203)