Bishop Robert Evans at Confirmation Mass

Bishop Robert Evans joined the Portsmouth Abbey community for the 9:30 a.m. Conventual Mass on Sunday, May 8 for the Sacrament of Confirmation. Thirteen candidates from the program were Confirmed, an additional four students having already received the Sacraments of Initiation at Easter. Bishop Evans, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Providence, has been a frequent visitor to the Abbey and knows the community well. He was raised in Rhode Island and served in the diocese for thirty-five years before being elevated to his present role in 2009. The Confirmandi group was presented to the bishop by Abbot Michael Brunner, who had prepared this year’s candidates, together with the school’s Assistant Director of Spiritual Life Mr. Dan McQuillan. The program was also enhanced by the participation of visitors from the Manquehue Apostolic Movement of Santiago, Chile. Confirmation remains an important part of the School’s spiritual life efforts, each year enabling students, particularly those not residing in their home parishes, to prepare for and receive the sacrament. 

Bishop Evans offered a dynamic homily to the Confirmandi, exhorting them to a life of faith that is authentic and fully committed to God. He joked that he may make them “feel uncomfortable” and they might wonder, “What does this crazy man have in mind?” He used the example of bishops who have been known to “walk down the aisle and say, ‘Recite the 10 Commandments!'” Others might select a student to recite the seven sacraments, or “...If he were in a bad mood, he might say ‘Recite the Corporal Works of Mercy in alphabetical order!’” While Bishop Evans avowed that he was in a good mood, “because there’s no baseball strike,” he pointed out that he would have the candidates stand up again, in front of the congregation, to witness their faith. While they may indeed prefer to be in comfortable clothes on that beautiful Sunday morning, and not on display, their reception of the sacrament was of critical importance. “Confirmation, like baptism,” he said, “is received once in a lifetime…. It is ‘the gift that keeps on giving.’” 

More important than memorizing the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the bishop said, is living them, using them. These gifts are “divinely infused in your soul through Confirmation.” They enable us to make God’s kingdom to the earth, that his will be done on earth, “as it is in heaven, as we constantly pray in the Our Father.” “Let these gifts blossom in you and through you,” he exhorted the Confirmandi. And much is at stake: we are “either in the state of grace or the state of mortal sin,” he noted, “There is really nothing in between... In the war between good and evil there is never a demilitarized zone.” Thus he encouraged the candidates to persevere in their lives of faith, to find nourishment in Scripture, in teachings that show them “to do better and be better”, to continue to receive the Eucharist. And he reminded them to lead a life that is truly Christian, noting that there are “Ten Commandments - not eight, not six. It is not multiple choice.” While this presents a challenging task for believers, they also must remember the power to forgive sins was the first gift of Christ to his church. The bishop emphasized continuation in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Even the Holy Father, Pope Francis, goes to confession every two weeks, partaking of this “beautiful remedy for our sins.” The question of the Christian life is whether we put God first or last: “there is no second place for God” in our lives. The most basic element of this primacy of God is the primacy of love: “To love one another.” One need but look to a crucifix to be reminded of how deeply God’s love for us goes, “to his last breath.” So, Bishop Evans affirmed that although the demands of the gospel are difficult and we will fail from time to time, and that we are only human, we are “more than that through God’s grace.” 

 The bishop closed his homily with reference to Blessed Carlo Acutis. This young witness of the 21^st-century died in 2006 at the age of fifteen. He is considered the “patron of the internet” having devoted much of his brief life to creating websites devoted to matters of faith, such as one documenting eucharistic miracles. From childhood, he had been drawn to the Mass, to the rosary, to a life of faith. His tomb in Assisi has become a pilgrimage place for many young people, and Blessed Carlo stands as a good intercessor for the young of our present day. He offers a powerful witness of how we may find and follow God’s plan for us, no matter how long we may have. We are all given a choice, the bishop stated, to be “our best self or our worst self.” God respects that freedom within us, and offers us the grace to make the right choices.