This has been a Confirmation weekend. We attended our oldest granddaughter's confirmation on Friday evening. Stayed overnight at our oldest son and daughter-in-law's house, and came home Saturday morning. Scary drive in a horrible windstorm, but made it okay. Then our parish had its Confirmation Saturday evening.
It's always interesting to look at the program hand-outs and read what saint names the kids chose. In both parishes they were 8th graders, which would be 13 and 14 year olds.
The most popular saint for the girls was Rose of Lima. For the boys, it was Sebastian. Of course there were also several Cecilias and Theresas, and Francis of Assisis. For some it appeared to be admiration for the saints themselves, such as the somewhat recently canonized Josephine Bakhita, or Maximillian Kolbe. For others, I think they just liked the name. It was a chance to choose a name, even though tacked on as a third one and not a legal one, which one's parents didn't choose. I don't think that is a bad thing. I did it myself when confirmed at age 9. More about that in a minute.
Our granddaughter chose Christina the Astonishing. Who is a bit of a quirky saint. Knowing our girl as I do, I think quirkiness was a feature, not a bug, in choosing her!
The archbishop officiated at the confirmation Mass in Omaha. Our priest did the honors at our parish. The archbishop has come out in the past, but seems to be doing less travelling nowadays. Both ceremonies were lovely, but different. Full churches both places. The grandkids' parish is a large urban one. Ours of course is a smaller town, older parish.
I thought it was nice that the Omaha parish had a reception afterwards. The confirmandi hung out with their friends, like the teenagers they are. The parents and grandparents sat at tables and visited. The younger siblings kicked off their shoes and ran around. Everybody had cake. Lots of cake.
My confirmation name was Caroline. There isn't a saint Caroline, or at least not one I knew about then. It is a feminine version of Charles. So, Charles Borromeo was the patron. The reason I chose Caroline was nothing to do with him, about whom I knew little. An aunt I was close to was named Caroline. And Caroline Kennedy's father was in the White House. I liked the name, and thought it was cool that a kid not much older than me was in the WH. When I got older I probably would have chosen Cecilia, the patron of music and musicians. As far as a saint whose personal life I admired, it would be Margaret of Scotland. But I probably wouldn't have chosen Margaret as a confirmation name when I was a kid.
I found out (like yesterday!) that there is actually a saint Caroline, Blessed Caroline Gerhardinger. She lived in the 1800's in Bavaria, and was the founder of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Who have done a lot of good work, in Europe, and here in the USA. So maybe Caroline wasn't such a bad patron choice after all.
I love Christina the Astonishing, the difficult, amazing, levitating saint who narrowly escaped getting burned up as a witch, and I salute your granddaughter in finding and cherishing her!
ReplyDeleteOur parish did not allow RCIA candidates to choose saints names, nor were the kids in The Boy's class allowed to do so. Seemed to be some kind of freak idea of the Church Lady running things at the time who was obsessed with making them volunteer at the local nursing home, which scared the bejesus out of most of them.
I have never quite forgiven her that I am not known, at least in Heaven, as Jean Anne Hilda.
Wow, your church ladies must have been some control freaks! Just about everyone get to choose their confirmation name, even if their reasons only make sense to themselves.
DeleteJust out of curiosity, what names did they stick you and your son with? (Or did they just eschew patron names altogether?)
DeleteNo names allowed.
DeleteI wasn't born with a middle name. I adopted my confirmation name Philip as a middle name and used it until it became legal. Otherwise, I'd be indistinguishable from the dozen or so Stanley Kopacz's in the US.
DeleteChurch ladies are getting a real reputation. Even made it into the Catholicism-soaked horror series "Midnight Mass".
Oh, gosh, that's right. The Church Lady in that was Church Lady on steroids!!
DeleteOur parish did not allow RCIA candidates to choose saints names, nor were the kids in The Boy's class allowed to do so.
ReplyDeleteThat is really, really weird! Now the old monastic tradition was that the Abbot gave your religious name. I can understand that in the context of only one name per community, and that the Abbot might want to have diversity of saints and virtues to be imitated and might even after a year of novitiate have some idea how the novice might fit into that.
But in a parish where very few people know each other's confirmation name. I think it is an abuse of power, probably not the only one by your church ladies.
In my own parish I have been very careful not to undermine the authority of the pastor or any of the staff. There are people who would just love me to do so, because of my extensive knowledge. Typically, I provide what reasons I can to justify what is being done, while at the same time giving rationales for alternatives. In other words, not taking sides.
However, from your descriptions of the church ladies, if I had them in my parish, I might have come to the conclusion that the best path would be to systematically discredit them in a very intellectual way without any display of animosity or personal ill will.
I have never been in a congregation--Unitarian, Anglican, or Catholic--that didn't have Church Ladies who seemed preoccupied with blocking participation by others, insisting on doing things their way, and imposing their personal preferences as holy writ. In other times and places, they would have been masterful court intriguers.
DeleteThe ones at the local parish are getting old. RCIA has been moved to our sister parish under the directorship of the nun there. The influx of new people is diluting their influence in programs. They are no longer involved in lector, EM, or altar boy training.
To their horror, both parishes now have Sunday CCD before Mass instead of Wednesday nights at 5:30.
God sorts out all things in time.
I hope Katherine will tell us more about why her granddaughter chose Christina the Astonishing. She is patroness of mental health because so many people thought she was crazy. Here is a prayer to her that I really like:
ReplyDeleteSaint Christina the Astonishing, you lived a life of poverty and loneliness in the eyes of others. But you knew that in the eyes of God, you were wealthy and had His love and the companionship of saints and angels.
Help us to see beyond the things of the world and realize we are never alone with God and that we are surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us."
Pray that we remember to offer up our sufferings for those who do not see beyond the material and who seeking love and fulfillment, that they may come to know God and realize that they are never alone.
Amen
Thanks Jean. That's a good prayer.
DeleteI don't really know why my granddaughter chose Christina. When they were here for Thanksgiving she said she didn't know what saint she was going to choose. So I sent her this book from Amazon about 400 women saints. So she may have gotten the idea there. She likes to "think outside the box" a bit.
I have not read that book; I may have to send for a copy for myself.
Excellent! I downloaded the Kindle version for $7. It will make a nice daily saint reading.
DeleteChristina is certainly for out of the box thinkers! I like her because she proves that God loves us weirdos as much as all those people with perfect marriages, lovely families, successful kids, responsible health habits, and nice lawns.
Something which I thought was a little bit unusual was that no one chose Mary the mother of Jesus as a patron this year. In previous years there would have been a few who did, maybe under one of her titles, such as Guadalupe. There was one who chose Juan Diego.
ReplyDeleteI confess I've never heard of Christina the Astonishing before, but I love the name! Although it sounds like a saint's name the Monty Python troop would have made up.
ReplyDeleteMy confirmation name is Mark. Katherine, like you, I was only about nine years old when I was confirmed. If I had to write a paper explaining the choice, I have no memory of it. And there was no deep and abiding reason I chose Mark, except that I thought he was the most obscure of the four Evangelists. (Was this an old Catholic view? I doubt I thought that idea up on my own.) Now I understand that he's one of the two or three most influential writers in the New Testament, so I feel like I lucked out in choosing him.
I'm as aghast as everyone else that the Church Ladies didn't let Jean or the Boy choose confirmation names.
Btw, I may have mentioned before that, as my confirmation drew near, my parents assured me that the bishop was going to slap me in the face, and I was left with the impression that it would be quite a wallop. I was a little frightened. But if he slapped me at all, I think it was more of a love tap. Nobody gets slapped at all these days.
I'm sorry to say that I have almost no memory of my first communion or confirmation. I remember preparing for both sacraments, but don't remember anything about the actual ceremonies. I was baptized within a week of my birth and have no memory of that, either. I do remember a bit of my first reconciliation; remember a lot about my wedding; and quite a bit about my ordination.
Jim, I remember being nervous about the face-tap also. But Bishop Paschang was a kindly soul, and barely touched my cheek. One thing I do remember is the sweet scent of the chrism. The sisters said they put balsam in it. I looked that up and it can be many kinds of herbal or tree sap. I think they still do that, for the oil of catechumens. But not for the oil for anointing of the sick, I didn't notice any scent with that.
DeleteWe had been taught to pray a thanksgiving after Communion, and I assumed we should also do that after Confirmation. But the Holy Spirit was and is a bit more mysterious than Jesus, and I felt rather formal and didn't quite know what to say. I think it was something like, "Won't you please take off your coat and stay awhile?"
BTW, happy feast day, Jim. Today is St. Mark's day.
DeleteYou were quite polite to the Spirit - I am sure he appreciated that :-).
DeleteYes, when I posted that comment, I hadn't realized his feast day was coming up today. It was a nice surprise when I saw my Saint of the Day email this morning. Liturgically, we're emerging from the Octave of Easter starting this morning, so I had to reset ribbons in my Christian Prayer breviary in order to do the Hours.
The Church Ladies did put a saint corresponding to our given names in the litany of saints at the Easter Vigil. I got St Jean Jugan, Michelle got St Michael, John got John the Baptist, etc.
DeleteI did read up on St Jean, who learned to knit and spin and founded the Little Sisters of the Poor during the French Revolution. I sometimes ask her to bless things I have knitted if they go to charity.
A bunch of my girlfriends and I used to call ourselves the Little Sisters of the Homeless Pets for our animal work. Alas, several of them have died, so the "order" is no more.
I would guess that under the new priest that confirmation names might return. That would be nice.
Btw, Katherine, I serve as the deacon for Confirmation every couple of years, and I've also been impressed, and a little puzzled, by some of the saints the teens choose. We also get a lot of Rose of Lima's - not completely sure why, as we don't have many (or possibly any) Ecuadorians in our parish. If her life of poverty and chastity appealed to young women around here, I'd think we'd get many more vocations to religious orders than we do. (As a matter of fact, I don't think I know of any such that have come out of our parish during my time here, although there is one woman who became a consecrated virgin some 10-15 years ago. We have had a few seminarians over the years. Even getting more candidates for the diaconate is like pulling teeth these days.)
ReplyDeleteBut I read just now that St. Rose is a patron saint of the Philippines, and we do have quite a few Filipinos in our parish.
Sebastian is equally puzzling to me - all I really know about him is that he suffered a colorful martyrdom. Although, I see in his Wikipedia page that he's a patron saint of athletes, so I'm guessing that's the explanation.
I'm supposing that (unlike in my day) the kids aren't left on their own to choose saints' names: the religious ed/sacramental prep programs are providing the kids with resources with suggested saint names.
We get a lot of Francis of Assisi's, but that one I think I get: I can see his life and spirituality resonating with young people (although, again, I don't see it resulting in a ton of recruits for the Franciscans). He's one of the most popular saints in general - very big with the deacons!
Re your comments about vocations in your parish. Is the choice of confirmation name actually supposed to be a precursor to becoming a priest or woman religious? I’ve never heard of that before, even in my generation.
DeleteMine was Terese (Little Flower). It was my mother’s pick. Two of our three sons chose to be confirmed (we left the decision to them). When one got married in the RCC (the only one who did) I had to contact the local parish for documentation to be sent to the diocese in California, where they were to be married. When I called the local church, they asked me for his confirmation name. (why???). I didn’t know. A bit embarrassing. I called him and asked, but he didn’t remember either. They finally found his records and told us his confirmation name - It was Francis of Assisi. We should have guessed.
I don't think I've ever had to come up with a documentation of my confirmation name. Had to come up with a Baptism record to get married, and both of us did for my husband to start deacon formation. They accepted his total immersion Baptism at age 16. Of course he was confirmed at the time he joined the church in 1982. He took Francis of Assisi as his patron saint. Good thing I knew that my record was actually listed as Katherine and not my first name Melody. The priest who baptized me was old school Irish and didn't think Melody counted as an actual name.
DeleteI think the kids being confirmed sometimes just pick a name because they like it, and I think that is okay. Flower names are having a moment, hence a lot of little girls named Rose, Lily, or Violet.
I don't think choosing a saint who was a priest or religious is a prediction of a future religious vocation. But I suppose someone could pick one as a patron who was already considering that vocation.
Right, I agree that choosing a religious-order saint or priest saint doesn't mean one is called to religious life. For that matter, I don't think I've seen many St. John Vianneys among young men. Just wondering what it is about St. Rose that appeals to young women. As Katherine notes, they may just like the name.
DeleteKatherine, the documentation was required because our son was getting married outside the diocese where he was baptized. I have no idea why the first thing the parish asked me for was his confirmation name. The local parish sent his records to the Archdiocese of DC, which sent them to the diocese in San Jose. Perhaps you and your husband were both baptized in the diocese where you were married?
DeleteIt seems that it is a tradition to supply a bowl of water with lemon slices in it for the bishop to clean the chrism off his fingers at a confirmation. Since our priest was the celebrant this time, the sacristan asked if he wanted that. He said, "No, soap and water will do fine."
ReplyDeleteMy confirmation name was Francis. It was chosen because males in the family tended to take names of older males in the family. I was named John Joseph because that was my grandfather's name. My dad was named John Francis. Taking the confirmation name of Francis made me John Joseph Francis.
ReplyDeleteJohn Joseph is a very nice name. We thought about John Jacob for The Boy, nod to the Amish roots, but my dad said, Why not just call him John Jacob Jingleheimersmith and scar him for life?
Delete