Hailey Makes Her Confirmation

And that's a wrap! We have successfully ushered three kids through religious education classes receiving many of their sacraments including confirmation. 

Hailey and Papa

It's been a journey through 2 parishes with us changing churches so Austen could make his in 8th grade instead of 10th grade. We returned to the first parish once they hired a new priest (who is fabulous and made you actually want to go to church to listen to his homilies) and after a year there he changed the confirmation age from 10th grade to 6th grade. So Peyton made hers in the 7th grade since that was the year she was in when this change was made. A few years later, Hailey entered 6th grade and her final confirmation class. 

She's the one that is probably my most "religious" but she has complained relentlessly about 6th grade confirmation classes and how utterly boring they are - of course most of her friends are in the Sunday class but they tell her it's the same on Sundays and her teachers are actually nicer. She used to love going to religious education classes but this year it has been hard to convince her to go and they must still go even after confirmation. She says no one goes and especially now since she made her confirmation (even though they are supposed to). In fact, after dropping her off last week, she sent me a text with a picture saying "Thanks a lot Mom, I'm the only girl here!" I did feel bad and promised her that since she has not missed a class since the start of the year, that she can have two free misses - her choice. 

But, she did make her confirmation on a Friday night at the end of February with Papa as her sponsor. (Papa has served as the sponsor for all three of my kids. They all said he's the most religious person they know!) We bought her a white dress (even though they wear red robes over them now), had a nice dinner and ushered off our Madeleine (her confirmation name) to confirm her Catholic faith.  Bishop Spies led the ceremony, which we were initially disappointed about because Father Mark is so good and we wanted to hear from him, but Bishop Spies was absolutely wonderful too. It's such a breath of fresh air to have priests that relate to the kids and the parents. He gave an amazing homily about having a favorite quote from the Bible and being able to recite it and it mean something to you. He shared one that he adopted as his favorite in the 6th grade and it was about friendship (which so many 6th graders could relate to) and yes, that verse could've been talking about your peers who were your friends but he was really taking about allowing Jesus to be your friend. It was a great way to relate to these confirmandi. 

Anyway, Hailey (Madeleine - the patron saint of girls rights and education) was confirmed. We had cake (bundtinis) afterward to celebrate the latest sacrament for Hailey. Now she just has 7 more classes to go until she's totally done with religious education (we'll see if she uses one of her free passes to miss tonight - it's actually confession/reconciliation today but I'm not going to tell her that. After all, she had one year less than Peyton and two years less than Austen where she had to go to religious education classes so I think she's made out just fine). 

Celebrating with Hailey

Papa gave her gifts

Hailey processing in (w/ her friend Bree behind her)

Hailey Confirmed with Sponsor Papa