Why Confirmation matters

Father Simon Gore from Animate Youth Ministries explains why the early preparations for Confirmation brighten up his least favourite time of year.

I am the type of person that makes lists. In fact, I have lists for everything. Of course, I have the standard to-do list. But then, I also have a list of favourite holidays I have been on and another of favourite cities I have visited – and if you think the two will be the same, they will not as I can like a city but not enjoy the holiday and vice versa!

Though not written down in ‘Notes’ on my phone like these others, I also have a list in my head of favourite times of the year and school terms. And I have got to say that the half-term in which I am writing this column is my least favourite.

The first term and build-up to Christmas is always my favourite. Then I like the summer term with the lighter nights and better weather. But this middle term and especially the first half of it, when you don’t even have Easter to look forward to … well, I just find it a bit grim if I’m being perfectly honest. Cold weather, dark nights, and even my birthday –reminding me I am getting older – is less of a high point than it once was!

All that said, it is an important halfterm for the work we do here at Animate. True, we may get the fewest bookings in the period up to the February half-term break but for the last few years we have made this our ‘Confirmation’ term. For Year 8 pupils, the registration website for the sacrament of Confirmation opened in early January and will close in March. In that time we visit our Catholic high schools to run a session on why we think Confirmation is important and why they should register for sacramental preparation.

The session changes each year but it is always designed to be fairly light: not going into depth on the theology and nature of the sacrament, but offering an enticing invitation to be confirmed.

This year, as an icebreaker, we have had a bit of friendly competition across the schools we have visited with a game of ‘Higher or lower’ based on the number of monthly searches of certain words on Google. For example, is ‘CCTV’ searched for more or less than ‘karate’? We see which school can get the longest streak of correct guesses and at time of writing St Julie’s is in first place (another example of my love of lists!).

We also have a game of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ with a potential prize of £10. Fortunately, at the time of writing only one pupil at one school – hello, All Saints, Kirkby! – has managed to earn the £10 prize, but we have had a few winners of 50p and £1. Each player plays as normal but we give them one lifeline to ask the host and we explain afterwards that – just as the game gets harder and we struggle to know the answers – so the lifeline can help us move to next stage. We draw a parallel with the sacrament of Confirmation in that life can get harder as we get older and we are often faced with questions for which we may not know the best response. Yet this sacrament offers a lifeline: God is someone we can turn to for help to move us forward. The lifeline, the sacrament, can be incredibly valuable.

Of course, we offer more personal testimonies of how Confirmation has helped us in our lives and the whole session is supposed to highlight to Year 8 pupils that the sacrament is important for this moment in their lives, this moment of maturing into young adults. Whereas with a First Communion or Marriage you may get physical gifts as a mark of the sacrament, with Confirmation you get gifts of another kind. For where these young people are in life, it is important to be equipped for the next stage with all they need to be happy and fulfilled and that is what this sacrament can offer.

So, yes, this term still remains my least favourite but it has been a good way to spend the weeks so far: driving around and visiting our diocesan schools and trying to encourage young people to take that step in their faith that Confirmation offers them. Dark nights and cold mornings still – but the light of hope for the future through these encounters makes these days a lot easier to endure!

To register for Confirmation, visit: liverpoolcalled.co.uk.