Why Your Presence Matters at Confirmation

Dear Friends,

Sunday is going to be a great day! Eighteen youth and adults of St. Andrew’s are going to be confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church when Bishop George Sumner, the Bishop of the Diocese of Dallas, visits St. Andrew’s.

There will be cake! And presents for the confirmands! But I also hope there will be you. Confirmation into the Church makes very little sense apart from the people of the Church.

It is, of course, true that the Bishop (and only the Bishop) can confirm. This is because the Bishop, as successor to the apostles, it the personification of connective tissue that binds Christ’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church together (despite our earthly divisions). But it is equally true that the Church — the thing our brothers and sisters are being confirmed into — is the community that you and I participate in locally at St. Andrew’s. This weekend we have a joyous opportunity to celebrate with our fellow church members, but also to represent by our bodies, our voices, our songs, and our handshakes and hugs the reality of the Church.

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew