confirmation

At the beginning of the school year, Tracy Kempfer posed a simple question to eighth-graders at Our Lady School in Festus.

"I asked them, 'What do you need from your parents to help you prepare for confirmation?'" said Kempfer, who teaches religion to the eighth-graders in addition to serving as school principal. "I gave them a piece of paper and they just wrote their thoughts out."

The consensus of the anonymous responses struck at the heart of the Catholic faith and the realities of being Catholic — even a young Catholic — in this day and age. The students wanted their parents to ...

Bishops administer the Sacrament of Confirmation with a special sense of joy. Yes, it's a lot of work traveling to parishes in all 11 counties of our archdiocese and confirming thousands of young people every year. But it's worth it. Celebrating this particular sacrament allows us to meet the young Church face-to-face, to share with them the special graces of the Holy Spirit and to encourage them to become new evangelists, true witnesses of Christ who confess His name boldly and accept their responsibility to take up the cross and follow Him.