A son of God

I received the sacrament of confirmation as a 6th grader. Sometime in the 4 years between when I was in 6th grade and when my brother Paul was, the parish shifted to 11th grade for confirmation. However, Paul spent much of his junior year of high school away from home (a state juvenile detention center resulting from his drug and/or alcohol choices). So, he was never confirmed. And occasionally, he expresses a very strong desire to remedy that situation. To date, that desire has never turned out to be a sustained desire.

In the last year or so, however, he mentioned it persistently enough that I mentioned it to the friars at our parish, and they are ready to create a program that attends to his special needs whenever he is ready.

So this morning at coffee and donuts, Paul and Fr. A and I ended up talking a bit, and the question of Paul's readiness to pursue confirmation came up. Paul said (oddly enough) that he is of two minds on the question, because sometimes he feels like really pursuing his relationship with Jesus and the church is very important. On the other hand, he feels like when he is closest to God, his psychosis is at its worst. And he just isn't sure how he feels about God these days.

I pointed out to him that the sacrament of confirmation is not about Paul's confirming God, but about God's confirming him. He asked, "Confirming me as what?" I gave what is absolutely the theologically right answer: "As a son of God." And Paul said, with just the exquisitely right amount of sarcasm in his voice, "Yeah, that's really going to help my psychosis."