To me, at least, the graces attached to Confirmation are much more nebulous are harder to understand. I recall reading somewhere that Confirmation's effects are "mysterious." Can anyone help me understand better?
Maybe these few snips taken from Fr. Wathen's; Who Shall Ascend? can help:
Baptism makes one a child of God, but only a child; Confirmation makes him a mature Christian, a soldier, and an apostle..........Confirmation brings its subject to maturity as a son of God, by filling him with the Holy Ghost and His Sevenfold Gifts.
Even after a long life of sin, if the Christian receives the Sacrament of the dying with the appropriate dispositions, he will go straight to heaven without having to go to purgatory.
For what confirmation is to baptism, extreme unction is to the Sacrament of penance. As confirmation gives the fullness of the grace of configuration to Christ inaugurated in baptism, so does extreme unction bestow the fullness of the grace of purification begun in penance. In the view of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, this Sacrament is, above all, the "consummation," the completion of Christ's purifying action in the soul. Its effect is to remove every last trace of sin. All is forgiven; the soul's cleansing is complete. The very symbolism of the Sacrament of extreme unction is strikingly suggestive of the effect it produces, namely, the utter removal of all trace of sin In every part of man, in body as well as soul. In the name of Christ the priest applies the holy anointings to every organ of sense, because it is in the senses that every moral defilement has its beginning.
There is another element which is integral to the moral life of every Catholic, namely, that of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. By these Gifts, which are a part of the spiritual raiment of Baptism (and moreso of Confirmation), the Holy Spirit lends his power and knowledge, so as to assist and guide the Christian in all his decisions and actions.
The Gifts are above nature and above supernatural virtue, so that he who posseses them can be expected to tend toward God and His truth and toward supernatural righteousness, without always knowing the reason, without always having a discernible reason for his understanding or his conduct.
We see this among Traditionalist Catholic people, whose education may be slight, or practically nil, but they have perceived from the very beginning that THE CHANGES are not of God, are not Catholic.
They instinctively reacted against the New Mass, recognized its devious, evil nature, without being able clearly to explain their aversion, or even to understand it. It is these simple people that the Conciliar clergy hate most of all, because they ask embarrassing questions (We should say, they used to ask questions; they have given up by now.); they accuse with ingenuous penetration, and they argue with such annoying insight. An example:
An ordinary Catholic, a convert at that: "Father, this 'Communion-in-the Hand' business-it is not right. It is very wicked."
Father: "No, there is nothing wrong with it. You must remember that at the Last Supper, everyone at the table handled the Eucharist."
O.C.: "But, Father, they were all BISHOPS!"
F.: "Hrumph! Learn to obey!"
We say, therefore, that Our Blessed Lady, not to mention the lesser saints, would never have participated in any way in the atrocities of the New anti-Religion. By the light of the Holy Spirit, her Divine Spouse, she would have perceived in an instant, without the labor of any syllogizing, that what is happening is of the Evil One.