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FAITH FORMATION / RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN IN GRADE – LEVELS KINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE 5 FAITH FORMATION MISSION STATEMENT We are committed to promoting the mission of Christ at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish through education and faith formation. The essential tasks are: Word – “Promoting knowledge of the faith” Worship – “ Liturgical Education” Service – “ Moral Formation” Community – “ Initiation and Education in community life and mission. PHILOSOPHY OF THE PROGRAM Parents are the primary educators of their children for both temporal and spiritual knowledge. Children experience God through their care-givers who model for them the goodness and love of a Creator who became one of us; died for our sins and showed us the Way to the Kingdom: which is both here and yet to come. Therefore, parents need to take an active role in handing on the Traditions of our Faith to their children. Through worshipping with a Faith Community (Sunday Mass), instruction and being a living example by putting faith into action everyday, children form a initiate relationship with Christ and Christianity becomes a way of life. As the bishop of our diocese has recently written, “the emphasis on adult faith formation, sometimes called adult religious education, or lifelong catechesis, are probably obvious. First Catholic adults will experience their faith in richer, deeper, more satisfying ways if they are continually leaning more about it. Second, if Catholic adults are going to engage seriously in their duty to apply the faith to the challenges of life in the world, they must understand that faith in and adult way. Third, because the quality of faith formation offered to children and youth depends so heavily on the mature faith of adults—parents, parish catechists, Catholic school teachers and youth ministers—it is critically important that adults b adequately prepared to share their faith with the young.” (Bishop Richard Malone, Letter to Parish Catechetical Leaders, September 20, 2004) Elementary Youth - Grade Level K - 5 r e This program is designed to assist parents in the faith formation of their children by instruction and example of Christian living in the context of the parish community. This program has three components:
1 Classroom instruction.
2 Adult Presentations
Involvement in parish activities. PARENT SESSIONS Parent sessions are designed to assist parents in the faith formation of their children. On scheduled Sundays, while the children in are at their sessions, parents to explore the topic their children will be learning in their sessions. This is to assist parents to complete lessons at home. Unitizing and understanding the materials is the best way possible for everyone in the family to benefit from the life-changing message of Jesus. CHILDREN'S’ INSTRUCTION Sessions are by grade levels and in different settings. Some of the sessions are in a classroom setting with a catechist (teacher) or sessions will be with more than one level together. Materials are based on the catechism of the Catholic Church. These sessions are scheduled once or twice a month depending on the availability of the parish hall. Children receive a workbook and parents receive an answer key. When there is not a session, parents are to do lessons at home. 3. INVOLVEMENT IN PARISH ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN IN GRADES 3 – 8 / MINISTRY SUNDAYS Sessions are scheduled once a month and are titled “Ministry Sundays”. At these sessions children get involved in parish activities by the different parish commissions: Faith Formation, Peace and Social Justice and Worship and Spirituality. The parish commission works with children and their ministry catechist to plan and put into action the mission of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Examples are: working food baskets, helping at the Wayside soup kitchen, or writing notes to shut-ins to name a few. Parents are invited to assist in this part of the program. Registration is required for this program. See registration page for details. Also for younger members of our parish! Children’s Liturgy of the Word is part of the 8:00am & 10:30am Sunday Mass. Each Sunday, starting the first Sunday in October, Father Carpentier will invite children in grades K – 2 along with Ministers of the Word to go to the chapel area (in back of the care room) to hear and experience the Gospel proclaimed for their age level. There is no registration for Children’s Liturgy of the Word.
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