Easter Week 6 Saturday

Readings: Acts 18:23-28; Psalm 46; John 16:23-28

The sacrament of Confirmation makes us to be mature Christians, adult in our faith and following of Christ. It means we are always with the Father who, in the Spirit of His Son, abides in us. And it means we are always sent from the Father, as the Son was sent by the Father and breathed the Spirit on his disciples so that they too would be sent.

Thomas Aquinas writes beautifully about this remaining and proceeding, proceeding and remaining, that characterizes the relationship between the Son and the Father, and that characterizes the relationship between the disciples and the Holy Trinity which has come to make its home with us and in us. St Thomas writes of the Word who has proceeded from the Father without leaving his right hand, Verbum supernum prodiens / nec Patris relinquens dexteram.

We can describe those who have been confirmed in the faith in the same way. They have been conformed to the fulness of the paschal mystery. By baptism they follow Christ in his death and resurrection, they die and rise in Him. By confirmation they follow Christ in his return to the Father and in his sending of the Spirit on the Church, they are always with the Father and they are always in the world to bear witness to what they have come to know.

So, as mature Christians we are taken up into this movement, this dance within the Trinity, into which the Father, Son, and Spirit have drawn creation, stretching themselves out, opening themselves up to receive it, making a place for creatures in their heart and in their home. We are to become like this, ever ready to rest and abide with the Father in times of prayer and contemplation, ever ready to get up and go out to serve those who need our care or our attention.