Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ for the conferral of sanctifying grace and the strengthening of the union between individual souls and God.  Confirmation is necessary for the completion of Baptismal Grace.  Confirmation “gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1303). By receiving Confirmation, one becomes a “soldier of Christ” and it renders our bond with the Church more perfect.

It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of Confirmation is the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost.  Confirmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Its effects are to:

• Root us more deeply in divine filiation (being children of God)
• Unites us more firmly to Christ
• Increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us
• Strengthens our bond with the Church
• Associates us more closely to her mission of bearing witness to Christ
• Helps us and more strictly obliges us to spread and defend the faith by word and deed