Confirmation is a sacrament, or a service performed by man. The word, Confirmation, means a strengthening, meaning to deepen your relationship with God. Confirmation practices are mostly used in faiths that believe in infant baptism. But, the big difference is that Confirmation usually comes later in life when a child reaches the age of accountability, which varies among the individual faiths that practice confirmation. Confirmation usually involves a time of training in God's Word and Christian doctrine, followed by an examination and/or recitation of what has been learned.
Confirmation is the Christian rite in which the initiation into the church that takes place by confirmation is confirmed. In the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Eastern churches, it is a sacrament by which a Christian is strengthened in his faith. In the Lutheran and Anglican churches it is universally used, but it is sometimes not a sacrament. In the East, the Priest makes the confirmation on the newly baptized person of any age. In the West it is ordinarily an Episcopal function, and the recipient has reached a canonical age of discretion. In the Latin Rite, the bishop is the ordinary minister of Confirmation but priests may confirm in certain circumstances when authorized by the bishop.
Confirmation consists of the laying on of hands and anointing with chrism, a mixture of oil and balm, although Lutherans and Anglicans have abandoned the anointing. Some Protestant churches use the term confirmation for the ceremony of admitting baptized persons into full church membership. In the earliest days of Christianity, adults became members of the Church through both a water confirmation and a laying-on of hands. For converts, becoming a Christian meant giving up sinful habits and beginning a new life. They felt a great spiritual energy to live differently from the majority of people around them.
As time progressed, the laying-on of hands by the bishop was changed to an anointing with oil, since in the Scriptures anointing is often associated with the reception of God's Spirit. Later on, the full ceremony of Christian initiation into the Church was divided into two parts: confirmation with water by a priest and anointing with oil by a bishop. This occurred because the bishop could not always be present at everyone's confirmation, yet he wanted to personally receive every new Christian into full membership in the Church. After a while, this second part became a completely separate ritual called “Confirmation”.
Here’s more interesting facts, details and information ABOUT:
Printable Religious Confirmation Invitations, Discounted Religious Confirmation Announcements, Cheap Confirmation Cards and Affordable Religious Confirmation Thank You Cards. |