RECONCILATION, EUCHARIST & CONFIRMATION

Preparation for the reception of the Sacraments in the St John’s Parish is conducted through a parish family based program conducted in conjunction with our local parish primary school, St John the Apostle, and the Parish School of Religion.

Parish Family Based Program

The Church, through the local parish, has a responsibility to provide opportunities for faith education and support for parents of children approaching the sacraments of Confirmation, Eucharist and Reconciliation. The parents likewise must avail themselves of these opportunities if the initiation of children is to be formative and authentic.

The Parish

Parishes have the responsibility of ensuring that a process is in place, which enables children and their families to access a program of formation prior to celebrating individual sacraments. This process of formation provides a faith education program for both adults and children and is referred to as a family based program.

The Sacramental Team

The Sacramental Team of the Parish is responsible for coordinating the involvement of families and schools (Catholic and State/Government) in the parish region in the formal preparation of children for the Sacraments.

The Family

It is because the Church recognises the importance of the parents in their child’s formation that over the past twenty years there has been a focus on family based sacramental programs.

The Parish Sacramental Team

At St John’s the members of the Sacramental Team for 2008 are as follows:

Fr John Bosman msc Parish Priest

Principal Catholic School Helen Currie

Parish CCD Coordinator Wenda Blackwell

REC Catholic School Leonie Keoghan

Parish Pastoral Councillor Sabina Van Rooy

As the Parish Sacramental Team of St John’s Kippax we look forward to journeying with you in the Initiation of your children/young people into the Catholic faith.

Parental Obligations

Attendance by parent/s at the information evenings, Commitment Masses and their involvement in the parish program is compulsory if parents wish their child/ren to receive any/all of the three sacraments.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE SACRAMENTAL PROGRAMS 2010

With the approval and backing of the Archbishop, here at St John the Apostle, Kippax, we are piloting a new approach to children's reception of the sacraments. It is best explained by the following letters.

1. An Important Notice to Parents & Caregivers from the Parish Priest regarding Reconciliation, First Eucharist and Confirmation

Dear Parents & Caregivers,

There are six sections to this letter:

• Introduction

• The Sacrament of Baptism

• The Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession)

• The Sacrament of First Eucharist

• The Sacrament of Confirmation

• Conclusion

Introduction

I am writing to you as parents who want your children to be part of the Catholic community and have chosen to entrust your children to us either at St Johns Primary School or at our Parish School of Religion.

Here at the Parish of St John the Apostle, Kippax, we have been searching for better ways of helping you to educate and prepare your children to complete their initiation into the faith community through the Sacraments of Reconciliation (Confession), Eucharist and Confirmation.

In this letter I have outlined our thinking in terms of a changed approach and, given your vital role, I am seeking your comment.

The key element in our thinking is to separate the reception of the Sacraments from any automatic link with either the child’s age or class at school. The Sacraments are too important and too beautiful to be thought of as automatic steps. Even within the same family children at the same age can be at different levels of maturity.

We want to offer the Sacraments to your children when you judge that their nurturing in the faith and their education has brought them to a stage when they not only grasp what the Sacrament is (a child’s grasp, of course), but you discern in them a readiness and a longing to receive them.

It follows that, if adopted, this approach would mean that there would not be fixed dates on which the children would receive the Sacraments as a group.

The Sacrament of Baptism

The Sacrament of Baptism is special. Baptising a young baby is a beautiful practice. It highlights the truth that just as the reception of life is a pure gift of love from the parents and from God, a gift that the child simply receives, with no knowledge or personal choice, so is it with the reception of the embrace of Jesus and the share in his life that is offered in Baptism. The only motivation worthy of the Sacrament is that you, the parents, supported by the godparents and by the Church community, want your child to be embraced within the community of those who want to live as disciples of Jesus.

At the Baptism you made a solemn promise to nurture your child within the faith community of the Church. You may have felt inadequate to do this on your own, for a variety of reasons (just as you may feel inadequate to parent your child in other ways), but you are not alone. The whole community, along with the godparents chosen by you, promised to assist you in the education and nurturing of your child in faith.

However, as is right, you the parent bear the primary privilege and obligation to do all you can to ensure that the Baptism really was a welcoming of your child into the embrace of Jesus, through the embrace of the Christian community.

The Sacrament of Baptism is the entry point into the community and holds out the promise of the deepening of this spiritual communion in the whole life of the Church community, especially through the reception of the other two Sacraments of
Initiation: Eucharist and Confirmation and the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession).

For the reception of these Sacraments the psychological and spiritual readiness of the child enters as an essential element.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession)

This is not one of the Sacraments of Initiation, but it has an important place in our lives as Catholic Christians.

It is a beautiful thing for children to learn to be self-reflective and to know that they can go to this Sacrament for love and forgiveness. We will continue to offer instruction to your child in Year Two, but it is here that the level of maturity of the child is of special importance.

While your child is learning about the Sacrament, at the Parish School of Religion or in the Parish Primary School, we will offer you, the parents, an opportunity to deepen your own awareness of the Sacrament so that you can better help your child in the development of their sensitivity which is so central to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We will leave to you the judgment of when your child is ready to draw fruit from this extraordinary gift of forgiveness offered to us all from the Heart of Jesus.

The Sacrament of First Eucharist (Communion)

Through the reception of Communion we become full members of the Christian community.

We will continue to help you to prepare your child for this most beautiful Sacrament by teaching them about the Mass in Year Three.

Many of your children will be ready to join you in coming to Communion for the first time while they are in Year Three. However, you may judge that they are not yet ready, or you may judge yourselves not to be in a position yet to bring them to Mass.

As with the Sacrament of Reconciliation, while your child is learning about the Mass, we will offer you further education as adults about the place of the Mass in the Christian life, in order to help you to help your children at this stage of their journey of faith. If you judge that your child is ready, but you are not, you could call on the help of the child’s godparents, or you may find someone else who could share this ongoing journey with your child.

If children receive First Communion, but then have no one to continue to bring them along to Mass, it is hard to avoid danger that the beautiful longing for special communion with Jesus that has been awakened in their soul will fade. They may come to think that Communion is not really that significant.

Sacrament of Confirmation

This Sacrament, which, like Baptism, can be received only once, welcomes your children into a new stage in their relationship with Jesus and with the Church. Jesus pours out on your child a special gift of the Spirit of love that he shares with his Father. According to the present practice of the Church, and as the name ‘Confirmation’ implies, your children are now saying ‘Yes’ to the gift you gave them when you brought them to the baptismal font and welcomed them into the Church.

Our proposal is to continue teaching all that is related to the Sacrament when your child is in Year Six (a teaching that will be repeated throughout Secondary School). While the children are learning about the Sacrament, we will offer you, their parents, an opportunity to reflect again, as adults, on the meaning and beauty of the Sacrament. This will place you in a better position to guide and nurture your children on their spiritual journey.

We are confident that this will add to the joy you experience in guiding and nurturing your children in other areas of their maturing.

Some children will be ready to receive the Sacrament in Year Six. Others will not be ready to make the commitment that the Sacrament implies. Freed from the automatic assumption that Confirmation is something that all children receive in Year Six, the children will be freed from the pressure of wanting to do what all the others are doing.

Conclusion

The changes outlined above reflect our desire to find ways of helping you to ensure that your children value the wonderful gifts that God gives us through these Sacraments that are at the heart of our life as Christians.

We already have in place a program to assist parents in the preparation for their child’s Baptism and as indicated above we will ensure that you are supported when you child is receiving instruction in the other Sacraments.

Ultimately faith is ‘caught’ more than it is ‘taught’, and it is here that you have a privileged role.

I would welcome your views on the approach outlined above.

(Fr) Michael Fallon: Parish Priest

2. An Important Notice to Parents & Caregivers from the Parish Priest regarding the Sacrament of Confirmation (March 2)

Dear Parents & Caregivers,

This letter is the promised follow-up to the more general letter of 16th February regarding your children’s reception of the sacraments. I repeat here what was written in the earlier letter explaining the reasons behind our current thinking.

Quote from the Letter of 16th February

We want to offer the Sacraments to your children when you judge that their nurturing in the faith and their education has brought them to a stage when they not only grasp what the Sacrament is (a child’s grasp, of course), but you
discern in them a readiness and a longing to receive it.

It follows that, if adopted, this approach would mean that there would not be fixed dates on which the children would receive the Sacraments as a group.

[Note: Since the Sacrament of Confirmation is given by the bishop, special organization is necessary. This year Archbishop Coleridge will offer the sacrament to those who want to receive it on May 28th, the Thursday Evening just before the Feast of Pentecost, at 7:00pm. We asked for the sacrament to be received at the Cathedral to highlight the fact that this is a sacrament, not of the parish, but of the wider Catholic community. If you decide that your child is not ready at this time, please let me know when he/she is ready and I will contact the Archbishop to organise a date for the reception of the Sacrament.]

The Sacrament of Confirmation welcomes your children into a new stage in their relationship with Jesus and with the Church. Jesus pours out on your child a special gift of the Spirit of love that he shares with his Father. According to the present practice of the Church, and as the name ‘Confirmation’ implies, your children are now saying ‘Yes’ to the gift you gave them when you brought them to the baptismal font and welcomed them into the Church.

Currently your children are being offered instruction related to the Sacrament of Confirmation. This is happening in Year Six at St Johns and also here in the Church in the School of Religion. In fulfilment of our promise to help you guide your child and assess your child’s readiness to receive the Sacrament we are offering you two evenings to refresh your memory on the meaning of the Sacrament and to guide you in helping your child. The first is on Wednesday 11th March. The second is on Thursday 26th March. Both are here in the Church from 7:00pm to 8:30pm. We noted in our earlier letter: ‘If you judge that your child is ready, but you are not, you could call on the help of the child’s godparents, or you may find someone else who could share this ongoing journey.’

Both of these evenings are an essential step in helping you to be confident in journeying with your child, and in assessing your child’s readiness to receive the Sacrament, and we impress upon you the importance of attending. If you decide that you are unable to make this faith-journey with your child, please organise for someone (baptismal godparent/sponsor) to do so, and to attend the evenings on the 11th and 26th March.

Sincerely in the Heart of Jesus,

(Fr) Michael Fallon: Parish Priest

For more information please contact either

Leonie Keoghan for children attending St John’s School, Florey. Phone number 6258 3592

Mrs Wenda Blackwell for children attending Parish School of Religion (Catholic children attending government primary schools), Special Schools and Marist or St Edmund’s (primary). Phone 6254 6454