Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments, and it belongs to a special group of sacraments, the sacraments of initiation, along with baptism and Eucharist.
At a hotel near Notre-Dame des Victoires in Paris in 1887, two names were listed in a guest registry on the same day: St. Therese of Lisieux and Friedrich Nietzsche.
The objective of this column is to help Catholics, in particular, as well as anyone else who has a desire to learn about our beliefs, to better understand the basic teachings of the Catholic faith. The sacraments are an excellent place to start because they have such a central role in the spiritual life. So important, in fact, that an “active Catholic” is defined as someone who is receiving the sacraments.
Banksy, the anonymous English street artist and vandal, once said, “You die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”
One of the most helpful insights I gained in seminary was learned from therapist Paul Ruff during a talk he gave on the importance of friendship in the priesthood: the deepest desire of the human heart is to love and be loved, to know another and to be known by one whom we love.