Folia Theologica et Canonica 3. 25/17 (2014)
IUS CANONICUM - Michael Carragher, O.P., The sacrament of confirmation and personal development
THE SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 187 This confirmed human being has come of age spiritually. Given that the human soul is immortal and thus not time bound, one of a certain advanced age can be born anew in the Christian faith and receive the sacrament of baptism. The accumulation of years is no guarantee of maturity. Nothing may have been leamt from experience. Even the Code acknowledges the issues of recidivism and addiction. Whereas young people can demonstrate varying high degrees of personal responsibility. No age has an exclusive prerogative to wisdom. St. Thomas gives a direct reference to the Book of Wisdom 4:8-9. “For old age is not honoured for length of time, nor measured by number of years; but understanding is grey hair for men and a blameless life is ripe old age.” As already stated, the anointing of the chrism takes place on the forehead. The face is the most visible part of the body and is usually not covered so that one shows one’s best side to the world by proclaiming Christ. The First Letter of St. Peter, 3. 3-4 states: “let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold, and wearing of robes, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious”. But one is not a closet Christian. St. Thomas, taking his cue from Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, chapter 4), advances two reasons why it is fitting that the forehead should be anointed. It is through the face that one betrays, firstly, one’s emotion of fear by becoming pale and, secondly, one’s emotion of shame by becoming red. Thus the face is strengthened by the sign of the cross, equivalent to one’s identity document. Matthias Laros29 explains that in the conferral of confirmation the recipient receives the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 68. A. 4.). 29 Laros, M., Confirmation in the Modern World (transi. Sayer, G.) London 1938, chapter VI: The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
