Our Lady of Lourdes Church and School

The Easter season stretches from Easter Vigil through Pentecost, and every year the Church offers us a feast of opportunities to reflect on scriptures that explicitly invite us to reflect on what it means to be a Christian in the world. Here at Lourdes, we have been exploring that idea against the backdrop of what it means to be a disciple, to be a follower of Jesus Christ, to be someone who actively seeks to learn from the Master, and to bring our own lives into alignment with the teachings of Jesus. In some ways, this can seem like a simple idea, but in other ways, it is more challenging than it might first appear.

Those who were baptized into the Church at Easter have enjoyed the opportunity to grow into what it means to be a believer and a follower of Jesus. In a very real sense, they have been moving towards their baptism all their lives. God brought them by various paths and experiences to an encounter with this community within which they took their final steps towards becoming “one” with the community of believers here at Lourdes. Through this relationship with our community, they committed to and participated in the process of growth and intense preparation we call the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and so they are now joined to the Catholic Church of Los Angeles and the faithful of God throughout the world. It’s a profound mystery, this experience we call “Church”.

So too, this weekend, we have seen the culmination of years of preparation of young men and women of our parish as they have diligently prepared themselves for the Sacrament of Confirmation. Parents and sponsors, our confirmation team and our parish staff have observed these young men and women grow throughout their lives, but in the past two years, we have had the opportunity to witness them grow together in very defined and powerful ways. The boys and girls who began this journey toward celebration of the sacrament - most especially in the two-year process of immediate preparation - have grown to become young men and women of faith together. I know, for some, it’s not easy to shake the idea of the confirmation “class”, and it’s easy to think that just because someone has attended catholic school all their student lives that they are prepared for the Sacrament of Confirmation. However, learning and study is very different from growing with others into a relationship with Christ that is worked out in the context of our relationships with one another. I have witnessed these young men and women grow together, deepen their faith with one another, struggle with difficult questions alongside one another, and affirm the beliefs of the community of which they are a part. They committed to be together and to support one another in this journey, this pilgrimage of growth in faith and spiritual development. It’s the journey with one another that prepares us to celebrate the realities that are celebrated in the sacrament. Confirmation is not about attending a religion class as much as it is a commitment to walk beside and to accompany one another as together we grow in our faith, from childhood through the years of our youth and on to young adulthood and beyond.

In days to come we will also celebrate the wonderful Sacrament of First Eucharist. Children who have been mentored by their parents and their family members, supported by their catechists and their teachers, will share in the banquet of the Lord with us for the first time.

In a certain sense, while First Eucharist is a blossoming of young faith in our community, Confirmation is a celebration of the maturity and faith development proper to young men and women who are asserting their own individual place within the community of believers and who are demonstrating for us their capacity to be disciples of Jesus on the strength of their own merits, and not those of their parents or other adults. Together with Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist are collectively known as the Sacraments of Initiation. Through participation in all that goes into preparing for them, and through their culmination, our parish initiates all who seek to live as disciples of Jesus. Through our participation we grow into a life of discipleship of Jesus, in the context of our relationships with God’s people, the Church, and we become blessing not only for one another, but for the world.