The Learning in the Process

I was back at Ascension 20 years ago today.  I had already been at Ascension the evening prior for a special Mass to conclude the Religious Education year, on Tuesday, May 3.

On the evening of Wednesday, May 4, I went to the Pine Room for another monthly Confirmation meeting.  It would be a bit shorter, and its primary purpose was for us to complete a quiz on what we had learned so far in the process.  Fortunately, we got all the questions and answers ahead of time, and as I look back, it was an opportunity for us to hone in on those important aspects of what we learned in previous sessions.

So while the process was to lead me to an encounter with God in the sacrament of Confirmation, I also realize the importance of what I learned along the way.

As I mentioned previously, I gained a solid framework for the 7 sacraments at the first monthly Confirmation meeting.  There were other lists I learned, too, like the 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the 7 Corporal Works of Mercy.  These lists provide a structure for how we grow in relationship with God and how we live it out.  (Interestingly, I participated in a service project with my school classmates about 2-3 weeks prior to this May meeting.  Some other teens from a different school were there, and one was attempting to recite one of these lists for her own Confirmation preparation, perhaps the 7 sacraments.)

And then there was the Nicene Creed, our statement of beliefs, with its sections on God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church, the last of which has the 4 marks as One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic.

Indeed, I learned much, and I learned it so well that I got a perfect score on the quiz.  Yet that would be just a mark of how I was coming to understand the framework in which I would live out my Confirmation as part of the church as I prepared to complete my initiation into it.