To the Newly Confirmed, Their Parents and Sponsors,
May the God of Peace illuminate your hearts and strengthen your spirits!
My warmest greetings to all of you who were confirmed on the day before Pentecost. It was my joy and privilege to invoke upon you the Holy Spirit who sealed you by the Sevenfold Gifts. Indeed, the preparations that you undertook over the last year were rather unusual due to online meetings that prevented us from seeing each other in person and almost made us strangers to one another. Things happen for a reason. We were tried and challenged. We survived and persevered. I can only hope that the Sacrament of Confirmation that we celebrated last weekend bears much fruit in making you spiritually reverent, pious, knowledgeable of the things of heaven, inwardly strong, prudent in making decisions, and always seeking to make God the center of your life.
Know then, my dear young people, that God’s grace is bestowed upon you through the Sacraments. We are given the access to deepen our relationship with God by choosing to grow in the grace that can transform our being into God’s image and likeness. Choose to cultivate the grace of God by constantly communicating with Him through prayer. Go into the inner room of your heart before you begin the day to offer Him everything that you would do and intend to accomplish. Seek His Will and guidance. Thank Him before you close your eyes at the end of the day as you recollect all the good things that happened to you and ask for pardon for whatever shortcomings and failings that you have committed against His Love. Develop the habit of meditating on the Word of God. Read the Bible. We can only know the depths of God’s Love when we choose to encounter Him in His Word. As Jesus said, “We do not live on bread alone but on every Word that comes from God.” Remember always to participate in the life of the Church. Come to Mass regularly, get involved in our parish devotions, contribute your time and your talents to the social events that our parish puts together throughout the year. Remember that the sacramental graces we have each received must be nurtured and must grow within us so we can achieve the dreams that God has for each one of us.
Parents and Sponsors, you play a particularly important role in making the grace of the Sacrament of Confirmation reach its purpose. Our Confirmation of the Sevenfold Gifts of the Holy Spirit is meant to make us living witnesses of the Life of Jesus who was raised from the dead. These, your children, need your assistance and guidance so they can achieve the power of grace that emanates from the Sacraments. They need your conviction and example to be the flesh and bone of your Profession of Faith and the promises that you have made during your own Baptism. Your discipleship has its own fulfillment when you intend to influence these young people to live our Faith according to the hope of the first disciples. You, as Parents and Godparents, together with our parish community, planted the seed of faith in each of these young people. The seed must grow, and it can only happen when the soil is fertile, when it is watered and nurtured. I ask you to make that seed of faith grow meaningfully through your willingness and dedication by sorting out your priorities and by making God the first One who should get the best of your time, the best of your gifts and the best of your talents.
I am committed to walk with you as your spiritual companion. Our journey in this world is rather short and requires much of our consciousness to be convinced of our devotion to Christian discipleship. Know that you are in my prayers. Know that I care for your spiritual well-being. Know that my exhortations are meant to encourage you so that all of us will continue to aim at choosing to be saved by Jesus through His Passion, Death and Resurrection as we continue to celebrate the Holy Eucharist. Our common goal is to enter into God’s Kingdom, and we can only successfully achieve this goal by being mindful that as God’s grace is freely given, we also choose our transformation and conversion through our free cooperation with His grace.
Again, my sincerest congratulations to all of you. I hope to see you at Holy Mass in the coming weekends.
Sincerely in Christ and Mary,
P.S. Congratulations, also, to Yennifer and Alberto Canales in celebrating their Marriage last weekend; and a big welcome to Joshua Bautista, Mia Isabella Alanis, Melanie Islas Mariano and Valeria Denise Perez as new members of our Christian family through Baptism.