Auxiliary Bishop Adam Parker of Baltimore has confirmed more than 10,000 young people—and he wants his brother bishops to know how much he loves it, and what a gift the sacrament is for all.
“Make our own humanity as bishops visible to the candidates,” he says. That means more than showing up in vestments. It means preaching in a way that invites relationship and shows you are a shepherd who knows and loves your people.
In this episode of “Preach,” Bishop Parker shares the confirmation homily he’s using across his archdiocese this year—built around Jesus’ question to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” He challenges candidates to spend their lives answering that question by striving to know and do God’s will.
Then, host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., asks Bishop Parker for a fervorino: If he were standing before his brother bishops, what brief, heartfelt exhortation would he offer about preaching for confirmation? The bishop’s response is both practical and pastoral:
- Remember who’s in the pews. Many aren’t regular Mass-goers. “There’s an opportunity here,” he says. “I’m not preaching to the weekday Mass crowd that shows up every single morning at 7 a.m. for Mass.” Focus on the invitation to a relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Make the gifts of the Holy Spirit practical and real. Draw from your own life and experience to show how these gifts actually work.
- Let your humanity show. “Make our own humanity as bishops visible to the candidates,” he says. Most parishes don’t see a bishop often, so use the opportunity to “simply connect and let people know, Hey, I’m your bishop. I’m the shepherd. I want to be here with you and for you to lead you, to guide you and walk with you.”
Bishop Parker also discusses his diocese’s decision to lower the age of confirmation to nine, the role of families in faith formation and why confirmation should mark a beginning of—not a graduation from—one’s life in the church.
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Homily for the Sacrament of Confirmation during Mass by Bishop Adam Parker (Mt. 16:13-19)
It may have been the most important test ever given. It was only two questions, and the one giving it was Jesus himself. He gave it to his apostles. You see, Jesus knew that everyone must have been talking about him—about the things that he was saying, about the miracles that he was working. And so he started with the easy question. First, he asked, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
I say that it was the easier question because it was easy for the apostles to point out just how wrong the others had gotten it. They told him, “Well, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” You can almost hear the apostles mocking them—those fools. But then Jesus hits them right between the eyes when he asks the most important question: “But who do you say that I am?”
One of them, Peter, was bold enough to answer. He said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter got it right. He knew the answer. He passed the test. When you are taking a test—when you have an exam in school—and you know the answer and you get it right, that feels pretty good, doesn’t it? But how did you know? Where did that answer come from? It comes from your knowledge, from your mind. We call it your intellect. It’s not something that you can see or feel, but it’s there. And what it contains—what you know—that came from someone or somewhere else: either what you were taught, what you studied, or what you yourself experienced.
I mean, you weren’t born knowing that the chemical formula for water is H₂O, or that the capital of Wyoming is Cheyenne. In some form, that knowledge was conveyed to you—maybe even just now—but now it’s there. It’s there in your mind, in your intellect. The same is true for your soul. What’s in your soul forms your will. Your will basically dictates what you do. It reveals who and what you are. So what’s in your soul matters.
The sacrament of confirmation is about what God is conveying to your soul—namely, the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So just as knowledge conveyed to your mind builds up your intellect, which enables you to be smart, the gifts of the Holy Spirit conveyed to your soul form your will, which enables you to be faithful—faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ.
That’s how Peter knew the answer to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” It was in his soul. In fact, Jesus tells Peter explicitly that “it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” In other words, Peter knew the answer to the question not because someone taught him, but because God put it in his soul. And from that moment forward, Peter’s entire life was about continuing to answer the question: “Who do you say that I am?”
And you know how he did that? By striving to know God’s will and to do it. That’s how the gifts of the Holy Spirit will also change your life. The gifts of the Holy Spirit will enable you, empower you, to ensure that everything that you are doing is what God wants you to do.
All of us—everyone here—has to answer that question: “Who do you say that I am?” Not just one time, but every day of our lives. And we do that by striving to know God’s will and to do it.
Let me give you an example from my own life. When I was a freshman in college, I was at Virginia Tech studying engineering, and that was my will for my life. I believed that I would become an engineer, I would have that as a career, I would get married, I would have kids. But I couldn’t help but think that God might be calling me to something else—that God just might be calling me to serve his Church as a priest. But I wanted to know for sure. I wanted a sign. I wanted something that I could see or hear that would assure me that this was God’s will for my life.
I prayed for that sign, and I never did receive a sign that I could see or hear. But I did receive a sign—because when I finally said, “Yes. Yes, Lord, I will serve your Church as a priest,” the sign that I received was an overwhelming sense of peace, an overwhelming sense of peace that has never left me to this day. And not that every day as a priest has been peaceful, but the sense of peace has never left me.
Did I get it right? I’d sure like to think so.
Candidates for confirmation, the very same gifts of the Holy Spirit that enabled me to know God’s will and to do it—those gifts are being given to you today. They’ll change your life. They will empower you to answer Jesus’s question: “Who do you say that I am?”
And you know how you’re getting it right? If you’re doing the will of God, people will be able to see God through you. You will know that you are doing God’s will if people can see God through you. People will be able to see God through you if you show them that you love Jesus Christ—that you worship him, that you pray to him, that you have a relationship with him, and that your relationship with him makes a real difference in your life.
Jesus wants all of us to bring others to him—to make disciples. That’s basically his will for us. And we’ll all likely do that in very different ways. But it begins with enabling others to see God through us.
My friends, today you are marked with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this sacrament of confirmation, God is putting a seal upon you—the seal of one who has the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So call on those gifts, use them, and allow them to enable others to see Christ in you.
Now, having these gifts doesn’t mean that you’re always going to know the exact right thing to do in every single situation. These gifts are not about predicting the future. Surely, at times, you’ll make mistakes—we all do. But what these gifts ultimately enable us to strive for is holiness. That’s a lifelong quest.
But holiness, simply put, is living fully in union with God’s will for your life. People who are holy are living fully in union with God’s will for their life. That’s a challenge for all of us—even for me as a bishop. Holiness is an objective, something I strive for. It’s a goal, and it’s something I fall short on every time I try to put my will above God’s will.
The same was true for St. Peter, the first among the apostles, because even after Peter got the answer to Jesus’s question right—saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”—even then Peter still denied Jesus three times. And yet Peter was the rock upon whom Jesus built his Church. Not a perfect follower, but someone who knew Jesus personally and loved Jesus deeply.
So must we. Will others be able to see God through you? Will people become disciples of Jesus Christ because of you? I hope and pray that they will.
So trust in these powerful gifts of the Holy Spirit that will empower you to answer that most important question ever asked: “Who do you say that I am?”
If you’re ready to spend your life answering that question—striving to know and do God’s will, striving for holiness, and striving to make disciples—then begin by stating what you believe.
So, candidates for confirmation, I ask you, please, to stand now and renew your baptismal promises.
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