By Father Simon Gore, Animate Youth Ministries​

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It is that time of year when much of our work is focused on the Sacrament of Confirmation. As you may know, the website for young people to register for the sacrament opened on Youth Sunday last year and closed during February half-term. I am pleased to report that we have had over 1,500 young people sign up. As Sarah noted in her article last month, we can often see green shoots if we look for them, and seeing so many young people wanting to be confirmed can only be a positive thing. 

Since Christmas, we have been visiting our diocesan schools to work with the Year 8 cohort who are invited to receive the sacrament this year. In some ways, speaking about Confirmation can be more difficult than with other sacraments. We always start our sessions by asking the young people what they think they know about Confirmation, and then we contrast this with what we might know about the other sacraments. More often than not, the response is that Confirmation ‘confirms’ our faith, or our baptism, or our desire to be a member of the Church; and we get a new name. Yet when we ask about baptism or marriage, the young people perhaps understand those sacraments more readily. 

Therefore, it could be easy for any youngster sitting in front of us to think that if nothing really seems to change and nothing is different afterwards, what is the point? After all, they have said that Confirmation ‘confirms’ something that happened before: it is not giving them something new. And though they receive a new name, they know that is not the name they’ll be known by. So, what is changing? 
We have mentioned before how we try to offer some thoughts as to why Confirmation is important at the stage of life that Year 8s are at. This year, we wanted to offer a different way of highlighting that importance, so we used a short film clip from “Finding Nemo”! If you know the film, you’ll know that it is based around a small fish called Nemo getting lost. His dad goes on a quest to find him. Ergo the title. 

At the end of the film (spoiler alert!), the dad finds his son, and they can go off and live happily ever after. But just as Nemo can escape, he sees a large catch of fish being dragged onto a boat. And now he has a choice. He can let them be caught and experience the difficulties he has endured. Or he can try to help. Of course, he decides to help. Not that long ago, he might have just focused on himself. But his life has changed. He has been forced to see the world around him differently. And so, his actions change.

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This little snippet helps demonstrate what Confirmation can offer us. As we grow older, we face questions and choices. Even though it is only a film, Nemo shows some element of judgement regarding how his actions could affect others. He shows courage by not leaving them to fend for themselves. He shows some awe and wonder, in realising that the fish would be better living free rather than caught in the net. He shows the understanding that he is lucky to have been saved, but who will save those fish caught in the net now? And then some wisdom in working out a plan to help. 

Ultimately, Nemo is changed by his experiences and acts differently than he might have done only a few days before. Something in him has been changed. He is no longer the child who was lost. 

Therefore, to come back to what Confirmation offers us, it can seem that it does not change us in the way Baptism might with a new baptismal name, or marriage with a change in legal status. Confirmation does not change the outside; it changes who we are inside – it changes us. After all, who does not want to live out their potential and be who we are created to be and who God knows we can be? 

That is always the last point for the Year 8 groups we work with. Who do you want to be? And is it not also the question for all of us, really? Who is God calling us to be? For those of us who have received the sacrament, maybe it is the grace of the Holy Spirit helping us be that person. And for those in Year 8 or those being received into the Church this year, maybe we can pray that the same grace will be alive and active in their lives too.