Parent Meeting and Program Update

As we all prepare for a snowy Wednesday and Thanksgiving this week, I want to give you a "short and sweet" message about our Confirmation parent meeting and a few program updates.

First, thank you to all of the parents who were able to make it out to the parent meeting.  These meetings are incredibly important, as the Church continues to remind us that you as parents are the primary educators of your children in their faith.  If you were unable to make it, please make an extra effort to attend our meeting in the spring.

At the meeting, I mentioned a variety of updates on the progress of our program this year.  Briefly, they are as follows:

1) So far, so good.  Students have remained largely faithful to our stronger emphasis on attendance this year and have seemed to approach the program with a heightened level of seriousness from years past.  As one staff member explained it, when the 7th through 10th grades are hear on Sunday nights it just seems like a more of a "learning" environment.

2) In addition, students from grade 7 all the way through Confirmation continue to exhibit a stronger engagement and interest in the program than in years past.  They are asking a lot of questions, and most importantly they seem genuinely interested in the answers.  This is an enormous blessing.  Along the lines of "with great power comes great responsibility" idea, this also means that we need to take an extra step to make sure that the kids are actually taking away the right things from our answers and everything else that they are learning.  Over the years in Faith Formation programs in different parishes and working in the public schools, I have noticed that the more information kids take in, the greater chance that from time to time misunderstandings crop up.  I asked parents to be willing to speak with their kids about what they learn to try to reinforce the Church's teachings!

3) Going through the "Confirmation Catechetical Checkups" that the kids took on November 16th is a long process, but so far there is one consistent trend: regardless of how much knowledge a student was able to demonstrate, virtually none of them really know what a Sacrament is or about the Sacraments.  This is certainly concerning, because Sacraments are more than just ideas to know about our faith; they are the things that we do - they are a very important way that we live our faith as Catholics.  At the same time, it is a blessing, because with one major area of difficulty we can easily make can effort in the remaining months of the program to put a lot of emphasis on teaching about the Sacraments at every grade level.  We will be doing so, and we hope that you will reinforce this at home as well.  The single most impactful (and easiest!) way that you can do this is by making sure to get to Mass with your child.

That is really the general thrust of what we discussed at the meeting.  I wish you and your families a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.  Be sure to keep us in your prayers, as you are in ours!

God bless,

Shane Coombs
Director of Faith Formation