CONFIRMATION SERVICE1

Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1933, Page 9

CONFIRMATION SERVICE 1

CEREMONY AT ST. MARY’S

SIXTY CANDIDATES PRESENTED.

ADDRESS BY BISHOP CHERRINGTON

Before administering the rite of confirmation to candidates from St Mary’s. Parish and the New Plymouth Girls’ High School at St. Mary’s Church last night the Bishop of Waikato, the Rt. Rev. C. A. Cherrington, explainel to them the origin of the sacrament of baptism and confirmation, the responsibility which became theirs after confirmation and the meaning of the sacrament. There were 52 female and 8 male candidates. Confirmation, said his Lordship, meant that as children grew up to years of discretion they were prepared to repeat and carry out for themselves the promises made on. their behalf by their godparents at their baptism. The origin of god-parents was that in the early days of the Church, when parents of baptised children were often imprisoned because they were Christians, there should be others to see that- the. children were brought up in the fear of God and kept from evil ways. The duty of godparents to-day was to help parents to bring up their children to love and serve God. But confirmation meant that they were

now ready to carry out the promises made for them, and in preparation for it they would have learnt that they must do their part in carrying out God’s will. . Unless they did their part God could not and would not do His towards showing them the way to live a true and worthy life. Confirmation meant that they were making a solemn promise to God to renounce what was evil, to believe what was true, and do what was right. A promise was a sacred thing, and only when If led to wrongdoing should a promise ever be broken; and a promise made to God and before His Church was the most solemn of all. Just as they could not enjoy God’s gift of food without doing'their part in preparation and cooking so apart from God they would not be able to keep the promises they were making that night. Confirmation represented a new step; it signified readiness to receive God’s gifts of grace,, and to repeat and live up to their baptismal vows. The ceremony of laying on of hands having been completed the bishop gave a further address to the newly con* firmed.

WHAT. “CHRISTIAN” MEANT.

They had completed that evening the two parts of the same sacrament, baptism and confirmation, said his Lordship, and claimed thereby to have become regenerated by water and the. Holy Ghost. Our Lord’s own description of what it meant to be a Christian was that it was ‘-‘being born again.” When. Nicodemus asked how a man could become a Christian our Lord told him that the difference it must make in a man’s life was so great that “except , a man be bom. again he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” and when Nicodemus questioned further our Lord emphasised his previous utterance and said that unless a man were “bom again” he could riot even see the Kingdom of God.

They all, knew what birth meant. It meant the start of a new life. That was What was meant by regeneration. They who had just been confirmed were starting a new stage in their Christian life. They had now to try to look at everything from the point of view of'God’s wishes and God’s commandments. Jesus Christ came to earth to show and to teach by the example of His own life of God in this world, the kind ,of life he would haive all try to live. The reason why the world was all awry to-day was that the nations, preferred their own to God’s point of view. Those , who had made their confirmation vows had sworn to believe the Church’s t creeds, and the first of them stated belief in . God the creator of “heaven and earth.” Many people seemed to think God was concerned only with heaven. This was not so. This earth was God’s world and mankind Could not carry on God’s earth unless God’s rules were kept. Unemployment and all the other ills the nations were suffering from could be y traced to this. The prosperity of the British Empire began by the hardships of th'e many for the advantage of the few, and the effects of that mistaken idea could be seen oh every hand and no one could see' the way out. God gave rules for running his universe; we turned our backs upon God’s point of view, refused to. do His bidding and preferred the human point of view. . FULL MEMBERS OF/CHURCH. They had. now pledged’themselves to try to live a life that God would approve. They, had become full members of the Church that Was the. cradle of truth and the home of Christians. They must begin by doing what they knew to be right. Constant doing Idfi to being, and it was more important what a man or woman was' than what he or she did. To be Christians they would de-' sire to be truthful and honest. The way to develop such.a character was tobe always strictly truthful After a while it became a habit to speak the truth, and they would become truthful and be known as reliable people upon whose promises other people could lean with safety. So in other matters, they must try by doing good to become good. Our Lord, proceeded the bishop, had not left many rules of conduct. He preferred to set the example and allow humanity to learn from that. But He did leave a few precepts, to aid. in the living of a Christian life. Four of them he would urge them all to remember and practice. They were first, to pray. to God regularly. Praying was talking to God, “and you could hardly 'make a friend of anyone unless you talked to him.” God desired Christians to be his friends. The second commandment was —- to give the Lord’s Day to the Lord; to come to His church on His day, The third instruction was to read the New Testament, study in it the life of Jesus Christ, and so learn what he came to teach. The fourth aid to strong Christian living would be by feeding on the spiritual food our Lord had left with His church. He left few commandments but of this He did say, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

To come to Holy Communion was to receive the Holy Spirit and be strength-, ened. He would urge all Christians to come regularly and often on. the Lord’s day to the Lord’s house to receive spiritual food from the Lord’s table. To do so meant careful • preparation. There were few things worse than to come to Holy Communion unprepared. They could see from the Prayer Book how earnestly the Church begged them to prepare. If, however, they would follow the four precepts he had . mentioned, and they were followed by our Lord Himself, they would ■ receive help in doing those things which God expected Christians to do and would" influence others to do so also.