The role of Confirmation

In the Sacrament of Confirmation, we are brought into God’s spiritual army and into the lay priesthood of believers. Confirmation, like any other sacrament, is modeled upon the life of our Lord. Jesus had a double priestly anointing, corresponding to two aspects of his life. First was the Incarnation; that made him capable of being a victim for our sins. Because in the Incarnation he took upon himself a body, the human nature with which he could suffer, and therefore redeem us from our sins. As God, he could not suffer, but as man he could. This first aspect of the life of our Blessed Lord culminated in his Passion and death and Resurrection. Now there was another aspect of his life, a second anointing as it were, and that was the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Jordan. That ordained him for the mission of preaching the apostolate, and this reached its culmination, as far as the Church was concerned, in Pentecost.