Confirmation - Blog by Philip Anderson
On Monday 21st November over 50 people from the Cathedral and nearby parishes will gather for a confirmation service, as Christians old and new gather to proclaim their faith and to receive the bishop’s blessing. Confirmation has existed since the earliest centuries of the Church, principally as a way for those baptised in infancy to proclaim their identity as Christians for themselves, and to receive the assurance of God’s love.
In recent years one of the particular joys of these occasions is that they are multi-lingual, and international, not least because of the presence of a significant contingent from Sepas, the Cathedral’s Persian (Farsi) speaking congregation. We are reminded that the Christian Church truly is Catholic, in other words, universal, at these great celebrations. Please keep all the candidates in your prayers this week as they prepare for this important step of faith.
As we pray for God’s blessing on the confirmation candidates we pray too for our next Bishop, John. He will be formally elected by the College of Canons before Evensong on Friday 25th November. This is an ancient and significant ceremony in which canons, clergy with a stall in the Cathedral, from across the diocese, will meet to pray and to welcome the nomination by the Crown of John Perumbalath as the ninth Bishop of Liverpool. His arrival next year will further emphasise how God makes disciples of all nations.
Canon Philip Anderson
Illustration – 2021’s Cathedral Confirmation Candidates