With the conclusion of the 2006 spring confirmation season it is both enjoyable and helpful to look back upon my own modest portion of that experience throughout the archdiocese this year. I breathe a sigh of gratitude (and, yes, a bit of relief too).

This marks my 27th year of service to our young people of southeastern Wisconsin who are seeking the sacrament of confirmation; I am not in any way weary of the ministry. Meeting young men and women in this context continues to be a refreshing source of encouragement for me and hope for the church.

So far this year I myself have been involved in the confirmation of some 1,941 young people, and I have read almost that many personal letters from them. Those individual testimonies are as honest as ever, but much more positive than they were a dozen years ago, and more open to the reality of young adult membership in the Catholic Church, warts and all.

A keynote speaker at last month’s National Workshop for Christian Unity was Dr. Richard Mouws, president of Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. Fuller is arguably the largest seminary in the world, having some 4,000 students enrolled in its classes.

Speaking about the experiences of his growing Evangelical Churches in our nation, and in particular about the successes of the new larger mega-churches, he noted that their current strength often stems from the fact that they provide small group experiences in which individuals can share their respective faith journeys, relate the Scriptures to those personal experiences and join together in projects of outreach and community service to the needy. Those three elements are the keys, he insisted, to engaging new membership and retaining their commitment to faith in Christ and Christ’s Body the Church.

I immediately realized this is precisely what our most successful parish confirmation programs provide for our young Catholic adults! Reading letter after letter this spring, I found a clear pattern of their change from reluctant individuals dreading the meetings and disliking the boring irrelevance of religion into people excited about the Catholic tradition and the wide range of spirituality which it offers.

Often the experience of a well planned retreat, with the opportunity for the sacraments of reconciliation and Eucharist, became the turning point for them. To the three key elements of success mentioned above, the best confirmation programs possess the added riches of our Catholic sacramental tradition.

In parish celebrations of confirmation this year, I often found myself suggesting that the most transforming service projects were those that went beyond normal local volunteerism to include the experience of an entirely new situation which stretched the participants beyond their comfort zone into unfamiliar areas of our society.

Meeting the poor on their turf and seeing the world through their eyes often became the catalyst for new spiritual maturity in these candidates for confirmation. Mission trips and Catholic work camps are invaluable means for that type of personal transformation.

These service projects are reminders that confirmation like baptism is about entrance into the Mission of Christ for the glory of God and the transformation of the world.

At the same time, these service projects, helpful as they are, should not obscure our fundamental conviction that the sacrament is a celebration of God’s gifts and God’s grace, not a reward for our efforts. We do not earn or deserve confirmation because we’ve fulfilled the parish requirements. We live in profound gratitude for everything.

Our parish youth leaders who plan and chaperone those journeys are incredible blessings for us all. In every parish they should be praised and thanked again and again.

After reading all the letters, I would suggest that parish councils would be wise to have an annual conversation with these individual youth leaders in order to stay in touch with the changing spiritual needs of the young adults in the congregation.

Instructors and adult leaders who can explain Catholic life, especially the meaning and importance of the experience of Sunday Eucharist at the parish, make a great difference in the lives of our young people. The responsibility, of course, also shifts to include parish musicians and preachers who work very hard to relate faith to all of life’s challenges.

An interesting sidebar might be my observation that often parishes misunderstand the element of “imposition of hands” in the confirmation ritual. Although a prayer in the Sacramentary is titled “Imposition of Hands,” the fact of the matter is that the title is somewhat misleading. By formal decree Pius XII designated the very action of anointing as the formal imposition of hands practiced down through the centuries from apostolic times; Paul VI reaffirmed this teaching in 1971.

Thinking back over all my experiences this spring, I continue to be impressed with how nicely dressed our young people are when they approach the sacrament … often in stark contrast to the appearance of others in the congregation whose ultra casual apparel can really distract everyone from the purpose for which they came to church in the first place.

As another aside, I sometimes wonder if parishes today shouldn’t place a receptacle for chewing gum at the church doors as we used to provide when smoking was more prevalent. It is a challenge to insist on “no chewing gum in church” when grandma is sitting in the back pew doing the same thing!

There it is, and the church continues to be blessed by all the young people who came forward again this year.