I was recently asked to speak to a group of eighth-graders preparing to make their Confirmation. Confirmation is a sacrament in the Catholic Church in which believers are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit and strengthened in their Christian life. The text of my speech follows.
After worrying myself sick trying to figure out what to say to you in this speech, I decided I would throw away all the scraps I’d written and just tell you whatever message came out of my heart. And so this is what I’ll share with you today:
First, I want to tell you that finding God in your life is the biggest and most important responsibility in the world. But don’t worry; it doesn’t have to be a difficult burden, or some kind of chore. There are already too many people doing things “just because they need to do them” in the world. I think it’s so much more inspiring to watch people who are moved by desire; to see people acting from some energy that lights them up and makes their eyes sparkle with fire. Deep inside your heart, and mine, is the greatest desire of all: the desire to know and be united with God. It’s a desire we all have, because it is the material of life; it’s the stuff that keeps our souls alert and our cells together. Some of us like to think about this desire a lot, and some of us forget about it. Some of us deny this desire altogether and say that God doesn’t exist. But all humans have to wrestle with this desire someday. You see, this desire to know God—to find out where I came from, and where I will return to—is too important to get buried forever. In my own life, I feel empty and overwhelmed when I’m not paying attention to the messages of my heart. I think St. Augustine got it right when he said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God.
But does this seem true to you? Maybe it seems like I’m throwing together a bunch of nice words, but they don’t have much meaning for you. Maybe God seems like a kind Person and all, but not very important in your life—not in the way that your mom or your dad or your best friend or your golden retriever Bandit is, for example. If you feel this way, I understand your doubts. God is hard to see and hard to touch—at least, that’s how it seems most of the time. And if your life is already pretty happy—you get good grades, you have good friends, you play sports, you listen to your favorite music and read your favorite books and go to dances and have fun—then it’s hard to understand why you might be missing out on anything really essential to your life. When I was growing up, I usually thought about God for just a few minutes before bed, when I said prayers with my mom, or for an hour on Sundays, when I daydreamed through Mass. It just seemed that other things—like my schoolwork—were more important, or more interesting. God was my Father, but He felt far away. The Catholic faith was my religion, but it felt boring, like a duty I just fell into and couldn’t get out of.
But I never rejected God or hated church. I wanted to honor God, in my way, and I always tried to be a good person. My conscience was constantly talking to me. It just happened that I didn’t really fall in love with God until I moved away and started college and began praying to Him more often. I always desired God, but my desire was buried by the various distractions in my life.
What kinds of distractions did I encounter? All the ordinary kinds. I remember getting especially anxious about how things looked, or how I looked. In the months before my Confirmation, for example, when I was supposed to choose the name of a saint I admired, I spent a lot of time thinking about which names were the prettiest, and not enough time thinking about the heroic things the saints accomplished in their lives. Later, on Confirmation night, I fussed so much about wearing my new pearl necklace, and looking nice in my new black skirt, and doing my hair up in a special twist, that I failed to reflect deeply on the true miracle that was taking place in my life.
That’s not to say that appearance isn’t important. I think it’s perfectly good to want a pretty name or to wear elegant clothes if you want to. But beauty is much fuller than either of these things by itself. Beauty is an instance of God being made visible in the world. Some people even say that drawing close to God is the best-kept of beauty secrets, since inner beauty sooner or later gets reflected on the outside. When you really pursue the desires of your heart—the kind I talked about earlier—you will have more color in your cheeks and more light in your eyes. You will attract people to you for reasons they can’t quite figure out. You can try it and see what I mean.
But anyway, the good news is that grace touches your life even when you’re too distracted to notice it. When I chose Teresa of Ávila as my Confirmation saint, my reasons were imperfect; but she ended up being a wonderful guide to me. As I got older, I discovered that I loved her mystical descriptions of a relationship with God and I liked her refreshingly human attitude. She was a woman who, in the sixteenth century, remarked: “From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us!” She knew that saints weren’t gloomy, pretentious people who walked around looking miserable or pious all the time. St. Teresa also wrote a beautiful prayer which became one of my favorites, and which I will share with you at the end of my speech.
So don’t be afraid! Grace will touch you on the night of your Confirmation despite your distractions. You will still be sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit even if your mind wanders off into daydreams, like mine does. But I encourage you to be as focused as you can manage to be on this very special day. For it happens only one time in your life and it is truly a remarkable occasion. On your Confirmation day, you are choosing, as young adults, to say “yes” to the faith you have grown up in; and with this “yes,” you receive an inflowing of grace and the strength to live a virtuous Christian life.
What does a virtuous Christian life look like? Well, that all depends on you! There is a great truth that says: being a saint means being yourself. Or, to use St. Catherine’s words: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” Do you have an idea of what kind of person you would like to be? I would like to be a person who is kind and gentle and smart and calm; someone who is graceful and patient and good at seeing beauty in creation. You don’t need to invent some image of a person you think you should imitate; instead, all you have to do is discover the best version of yourself, which is already hidden inside your being, and allow it to blossom into existence. This is much more natural than trying to copy someone else, and much more freeing—since it allows you to accept yourself as you are. The trick to finding a holy person is not to look for the quietest one in the room, or for the loudest; for the priest, or for the dad of ten children; for the brainiest, or for the most modestly dressed. The holy person is the one who is being truly himself and following the guidance of his heart. Don’t let anyone prevent you from being the person you’re meant to be! You have the power and the right to cling to the identity which God gave you.
But how do you know for sure what kind of person you’re meant to be? I think that prayer is the deepest and most practical way of discovering yourself. For me, prayer is simply contact with God, union with God. You can pray in all kinds of ways, at any time of the day. In my experience, the best way to meet God is in silence. I like to go to a little chapel by my house every day and just sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament without saying anything. My mind usually bothers me with so much talking throughout the day that it’s nice to give it a rest. I don’t try too hard to pray in a certain way: to use the right words or to create the right imagery. It makes me tired and unhappy to follow a specific formula for prayer. So I just sit with God and listen to Him. My favorite approach to God is the path of spiritual childhood. This means I can act like a child before God: simple and untroubled and trusting and free. I’ve heard people say: “Oh, you shouldn’t bother God with that thing—it’s not important enough!” But I believe that God loves for us to ask His help in anything and everything, no matter how big or small—and in whatever words we feel inspired to use (or not use).
Making a habit of prayer will truly transform you. A day with prayer always seems to go more smoothly than a day without it. Over time, you will begin to notice differences in yourself—or others will notice and point them out to you. When I pray, I am more peaceful and grounded. I am slower to judge and quicker to appreciate mystery in the events of my life. Prayer helps me to worry less, trust more, and believe that, in fact, all things are possible with God. Some days, prayer seems very ordinary; but other days, prayer can shock my life with a real sense of magic.
A couple of years ago, for example, I was planning to take a job in Washington, D.C. I had spent a long time searching the Internet for a place to live, but I was being rather picky about the whole thing. I wanted an apartment with wood floors and natural light and nice kitchen appliances; I thought it should be close to a nice food market and a subway stop and a 24-hour Adoration Chapel; and of course it had to be within my budget. I wasn’t having much luck, and two or three days before I was supposed to move, I still didn’t have a place to live. I threw up my hands and said: “I’m done! I can’t do this anymore!” On our kitchen refrigerator we had a picture of St. Thérèse, a saint, nicknamed the “Little Flower,” who is known for miraculously sending roses into people’s lives. I looked at St. Thérèse and said: “Please send me a rose!” That night I dreamt that I was sharing a house with a few girls. In the morning, I turned on my computer and found a girl who needed to sublet her room right away. The room was in a house shared by three other young Catholic women, with wood floors and natural light and a nice kitchen. There was a farmers’ market in a park two blocks away, a 24-hour Adoration Chapel in a church a couple of streets over, and a subway station within walking distance. The rent was cheaper than any I’d seen! And the name of the girl letting her room was Rose.
Prayer doesn’t make my life perfect, of course; and it certainly doesn’t make me a perfect person. I still worry about things a lot. But I’m sure that my life would be more chaotic, and a little less magical, without the help of prayer.
So I encourage you to carve out time every day to pray, in whatever way you prefer. You’ll be ahead of the curve if you do. I wish I had learned the importance of prayer sooner; I think it would have helped me to navigate high school more gracefully.
And don’t forget about Mass. It’s a real blessing to receive Communion because Christ is really present in the Eucharist. I try to receive Him as often as possible. Jesus taught us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” because it’s no less important to feed our souls than to feed our bodies. Do you ever notice how, when you’re feeling sad about something, your body seems weaker and more tired? That’s because the health of your soul is closely tied to the health of your body. So try to strengthen both of them!
Lastly, just remember that God always dwells inside you. Making your Confirmation will help you to feel His presence in your soul more clearly. When you find some quiet time, listen to your inner voice. It’s so important that you do, especially if you’re feeling lost or confused. When God is speaking to you, you will feel bolder, more expansive, more peaceful, and free. These are signs that you’re moving in the right direction—signs that you’re slowly becoming the person God has called you to be.
St. Teresa’s prayer: “Nada te turbe”
Let nothing disturb you / Let nothing frighten you / All things are passing / God never changes / Patience attains all things / He who has God lacks nothing / God alone suffices.