This lesson and discussion go with the Spiritual Reading from the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop. The Spiritual Reading may be found in the Quick Connect for Pentecost

Flour without water can be easily blown and scattered. In the analogy that Saint Irenaeus gives, we are the flour. Satan is continuously prowling around like a lion, looking for someone to devour. Our souls, like flour, are susceptible to being blown around and scattered by Satan. Sin is separation; separation between man and God. If our souls were like the tiny pieces of flour, Satan would like to separate and scatter them. Flour with water is bound together (baptism).
 
Search: Three Battles
 
Search: The Temptation of Christ Chart
 
To prevent separation and scattering, we are baptized. In the waters of baptism, we are brought together into God’s family and protected from the snares of Satan as we renounce Satan and embrace Christ.
 
Flour with water is simply dough. Although bound together, it is still weak and without purpose.  Dough must be put in the fire, rise, strengthen, and become the perfection that it was meant for. “According to the Council of Trent, this Sacrament [Confirmation] makes us perfect Christians.”[i] With Baptism, we become dough, safe from the winds of Satan, which threaten to scatter us. Without Confirmation, we remain simple dough; weak, without purpose, not reaching perfection. With Confirmation, we are baked into bread and like Christ, the Bread of Life, are given to the world.
 
The following prayer is a witness to this goal of perfection, which the Sacraments of Initiation help us achieve. “Lord, may everything we do begin (Baptism) with your inspiration, and continue (Confirmation and Eucharist) with your help, so that all our prayers and works may begin in you and by you be happily ended. We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”
 
God gives us the Sacraments of Initiation so that we can have a beginning (Baptism) and the strength to continue through life (Confirmation and Eucharist) toward our ultimate end, heaven.  Our spiritual life is similar to our physical life.  We have organs, but they must be protected, strengthened, and nourished to continue.
 
Every life has to have an origin, development, and nourishment. What is the origin, development, and nourishment of the Spiritual life? The Spiritual life has an origin (Baptism), development (Confirmation), and nourishment (Eucharist). The human body also has organs, a skeleton, and needs nutrients. Confirmation is like the skeletal system of the soul, which gives support and strength.
 
Here is a breakdown:
 
Without Baptism: we are flour blown around by Satan
With Baptism: water and flour are mixed and become dough
 
Without Confirmation: We are just dough (Confirmation completes Baptismal Grace)
With Confirmation: The fire of the Holy Spirit turns dough into bread
 
Without the Eucharist: We are not one in body and spirit and do not have nourishment
With the Eucharist: We are one in body and spirit, are nourished, and in Christ, give our life to the world
 
At World Youth Day 2008, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, during the final Mass, when he confirmed young people said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”. These words of the Risen Lord have a special meaning for those young people who will be confirmed, sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, at today’s Mass. But they are also addressed to each of us – to all those who have received the Spirit’s gift of reconciliation and new life at Baptism, who have welcomed Him into their hearts as their helper and guide at Confirmation, and who daily grow in His gifts of grace through the Holy Eucharist. At each Mass, in fact, the Holy Spirit descends anew, invoked by the solemn prayer of the Church, not only to transform our gifts of bread and wine into the Lord’s body and blood, but also to transform our lives to make us, in His power, “one body, one spirit in Christ”[ii].
 
Christian initiation is complete with Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist. In the early Church, Confirmation was received after Baptism and can be seen as a second installment. The third installment is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. In Baptism, we become adopted children of the Father. In Confirmation, we receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit with its gifts and fruits. In the Holy Eucharist, we physically receive Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The Sacraments of Initiation are Trinitarian and give us the Divine Life in participation with the Life of the Blessed Trinity.
 
“But the one who gives us security with you in Christ and who anointed us in God; he has also put his seal upon us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.”[iii]
 
What do the words security, seal, and installment mean? “The commercial terms gives us security, seal, first installment are here used analogously to refer to the process of initiation into the Christian life, perhaps specifically to baptism. The passage is clearly Trinitarian. The Spirit is the first installment or ‘down payment’ of the full messianic benefits that God guarantees to Christians.”[iv]

[i] Roman Catholic Daily Missal [1962]; page 1841
[ii] Homily at the 23^rd World Youth Day by Pope Benedict XVI
[iii] 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 and Ephesians 1:11-14
[iv] 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (footnote) NAB