Holy Spirit at Baptism or Confirmation?

[japhy]

Forgive me for asking such a pedestrian question…

Do we receive the Holy Spirit at Baptism, or only at Confirmation? I just ask because I see this in the Catechism of St. Pius X:

2 Q. What are the effects of the sacrament of Baptism?
A. The sacrament of Baptism confers first sanctifying grace by which original sin is washed away, as well as all actual sin if any such exists; it remits all punishment due on account of such sins; it imprints the character of a Christian; it makes us children of God, members of the Church, and heirs to Paradise, and enables us to receive the other sacraments.

1 Q. What is the sacrament of Confirmation?
A. Confirmation is a sacrament which gives us the Holy Ghost, imprints on our souls the mark of a soldier of Jesus Christ, and makes us perfect Christians.

And from the Baltimore Catechism:

315. What is Baptism?
Baptism is the sacrament that gives our souls the new life of sanctifying grace by which we become children of God and heirs of heaven.

330. What is Confirmation?
Confirmation is the sacrament through which the Holy Ghost comes to us in a special way and enables us to profess our faith as strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ.

 

[Phemie]

Yes, the Holy Spirit is received in Baptism.
The CCC says:

1265 Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,” member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.

1266 The Most Holy Trinity gives the baptized sanctifying grace, the grace of justification:

• enabling them to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him through the theological virtues;
• giving them the power to live and act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of the Holy Spirit;
• allowing them to grow in goodness through the moral virtues.
  Thus the whole organism of the Christian’s supernatural life has its roots in Baptism.

 

[passus]

The fathers of the Church taught this as well.
From baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ. At that same moment in which the priests invoke the Spirit, heaven opens, and he descends and rests upon the waters, and those who are baptized are clothed in him. The Spirit is absent from all those who are born of the flesh, until they come to the water of rebirth, and then they receive the Holy Spirit. . . . *n the second birth, that through baptism, they receive the Holy Spirit (*Treatises *6:14:4 [A.D. 340]).

catholic.com/library/baptismal_grace.asp
*

 

[Brendan]

The correct answer is

C.) All of the Above.

We receive the Holy Spirit at Baptism, who then indwells in us when we are in a state of Grace.

The Holy Spirit also comes at Confirmation to Seal and Strengthen our Faith. It is not an indwelling, as that has already happened at Baptism, but rather, our Soul are indelibly marked by the Spirit with additional strength.

 

[agapewolf]

chocolate syrup poured into the milk : Baptism

Chocolate syrup stirred up: confirmation

 

[japhy]

chocolate syrup poured into the milk : Baptism

Chocolate syrup stirred up: confirmation

I’ve heard that analogy used for charismatic “baptism in the Spirit”. I think your example seems more logical (and theologically-sacramentally sound).

 

[stbruno]

The correct answer is

C.) All of the Above.

We receive the Holy Spirit at Baptism, who then indwells in us when we are in a state of Grace.

The Holy Spirit also comes at Confirmation to Seal and Strengthen our Faith. It is not an indwelling, as that has already happened at Baptism, but rather, our Soul are indelibly marked by the Spirit with additional strength.

Couldn’t say it any better myself!!

 

[Lazerlike42]

A helpful way to understand it is to consider the theological fact that the Holy Spirit is God’s agent of action in the world. That is, whenever God does something in the world, it is through the Holy Spirit. So for example, we see that when God made the world, the Spririt hovered over the waters, and when God annointed David King of Israel, he was annointed with the Holy Spirit, and when He conceived Christ in the womb of Mary, the Holy Spirit was acting. When God revealed prophecy through the prophets, it was through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth that she might proclaim Mary’s blessedness at the Visitation. And so on, and so on, etc. etc.

Next, consider that the Scriptures depict the Holy Spirit as coming at various times before Pentecost. For example, The Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth at the Visitation, and Christ said unto the Apostles on the evening of His Resurrection, “receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.”

What’s going on here is that, as I said, whenver God does something in the world, it is through the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Holy Spirit is invoked in all of the Sacraments. It is helpful then to understand that in the various Sacraments, the same Holy Spirit is given, but He is given to do different things. In Baptism, the Holy Spirit is given to sanctify the baptized and to mark them with the indellible mark of Christian, which “brands” the person as belonging to Christ and changes his very soul to make it capable of receiving the other Sacraments (Baptism is really such a radical, violent thing, so much more so than people realize; it changes our very souls!). In Confirmation, the Holy Spirit is given to strengthen the soul and to impart the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At an ordination, the Holy Spirit is given to again change the soul to make the man capable of confecting the Eucharist.

And so on!

God bless