On Pentecost Sunday 44 confirmandi from throughout the Springfield diocese were confirmed by Bishop Thomas John Paprocki during the 10 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield.

As is the bishop’s custom when confirming young people in parishes throughout the diocese, his homily was a mix of spoken words intertwined with song lyrics from contemporary music groups — Linken Park’s From the Inside  and  Nickelback’s Gotta Be Somebody — to illustrate the theme “In God We Trust.”

“At times, it can be very hard to trust other people. Especially if that trust has been broken,” Bishop Paprocki said, after singing lyrics from From the Inside.

“When trust is broken, it can become very hard for us to trust again. So where can we turn to place our trust? The answer is right here on every dollar bill: ‘In God We Trust,’” Bishop Paprocki said, holding a dollar bill up high for all to see. “That’s what Jesus is asking you to do today in this sacrament of confirmation. He’s asking you to place your trust in God!”

The bishop spoke of promises God made in the Old and New Testaments. “On Pentecost, he sent his Holy Spirit to be with his church. It is that same Holy Spirit that is being poured out on you today in confirmation,” he said.

The bishop illustrated trust in God by describing a stunt man’s daring feat — riding a unicycle on a tightrope across Niagara Falls while carrying another person on his shoulders. On making it successfully across, the stuntman asked the crowd if they thought he could do it again. Answered in the affirmative, the stuntman pointed to his shoulders, and asked, “Who’s next?”

The bishop closed his remarks, telling them “to believe in Jesus is to say that you trust him.”

“It is to hop up on his shoulders and trust him to carry you across all the hazards of our journeys in life. It is to enter into a relationship with him,” Bishop Paprocki said.

He then sang lyrics from a teenage love song by the Canadian group, Nickelback. “Everyone wants to feel like someone cares … everyone wants to know they’re not alone,” the bishop sang, and then finished by saying, “Ultimately only God can fulfill these deepest longings of our years, and that is what we mean when we say, ‘In God We Trust.’”

Those who were confirmed (their confirmation names in parentheses) and their