A Letter to My Son on His Confirmation

This past Sunday, we celebrated confirmations, reception, and renewals at St. James! Each candidate received a letter like this one, which tries to connect some important themes of confirmation/baptism/faith. Sharing here in case in can be a gift to your baptism and life of faith, too.

Peace,
Jonathan

PS Yes, the letter's last line is an unapologetic nod to / theft from the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry. Sorry, not sorry.

May 12, 2024

Dear Jude,

Congratulations! What a wonderful day for you and the whole church.

On the off chance some of the details of confirmation class slip through the cracks along the way, I hope you will remember before anything else that your confirmation today is a yes to your baptism. And your baptism was God’s make God’s yes to you visible, so you could see it. Before anything you did, are doing, or ever will do, Child, you are loved.

I hope you will remember, too, that, today, you are not being asked to do anything alone. You have been made a part of the fabric of faith, and the rest of us have promised today to do everything in our power to support you. We will count on you to support us, too! In this, you are a gift to bless St. James, the larger church, and the world! It’s a wonderful gift to be knit together as pilgrims in the life of faith.

Speaking of pilgrims. You may have heard of the Camino before. It’s an ancient pilgrim route in Spain to the church of Santiago. Santiago is Spanish for St. James. This is one of the reasons the symbol for St. James (both the saint and the church) is a scallop shell. (The scallop shell is, of course, also a symbol of baptism!)

Anyway, pilgrims would wear the shell to mark themselves along the way as on a pilgrimage. When they found themselves in grocery stores and other places, the shell was a sign to others and to themselves that, even when the path looked ordinary, they were on a pilgrim path.

The same is true for you! The shell you receive today is from the pilgrim path in Spain. I hope you will wear it or put in a place you’ll regularly come across it, as a daily reminder that today is not a finish line but the day you said yes again to the next leg of pilgrimage with Jesus.

Pilgrimage means every day made holy. It gathers everything in your past that has brought you to this day, even the difficult days, and receives them in new light. Pilgrimage anticipates all that God is yet to show you and do in you and offers thanks for the new possibilities of Christ. And pilgrimage transforms every present moment, even this one!, into one in which you are invited to trust that you and everything in it are a part of God’s good work of making all things new.

Jude, I thank God for you. And for your commitment to learn and walk the way of Jesus together. You have been planted on the pathway of faith. Let the days ahead be for growing deep roots and growing far-reaching branches. For seeing and singing the nearness of the Lord.

God bless you. And God keep us all in God’s almighty hands of love.

Dad/Father Jonathan