The meaning of Confirmation

Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments within the Catholic faith. During Confirmation, Catholics receive the Holy Spirit and become adults in the eyes of the church. Most Catholics are confirmed around the ages of 14 or 15, and the ceremony is presided over by a bishop, who possesses the fullness of the priesthood but also rules a diocese as its chief pastor. Though once routinely performed before a child reached his or her first birthday, nowadays the western Catholic church confers the sacrament when people are old enough to understand it. After the Second Vatican Council, which occurred in the 1960s and addressed the relationship between the Catholic Church and the modern world, it became normal for Catholics to receive the sacrament of Confirmation between the sixth and tenth grades. This time span is considered to be the age of discretion, or when Catholics have a reached a point in their lives where they have been deemed to be morally responsible.