Faith Formation for the Entire Family
FAMILY FAITH FORMATION YEAR 2024 - 2025
Saint Matthew's Family Faith Formation program uses the Finding God: Our Response to God’s Gifts curriculum that integrates the fundamental themes of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as Scripture and Catholic social teachings. Embodying the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Finding Godprovides all the tools to engage the whole child – mind, heart, and soul – uniquely guiding children to practice prayer and reflection, to explore Scripture, and to find God in all things. The curriculum fully engages children in the full teachings of the Catholic Church, inviting them to discover the beauty of their faith.
A discount is offered for 2 or more children of the same household.
Classes Begin/Parent Orientation - August 3, 2024
From 9:00 to 10:30 am
WHERE IT BEGINS
"In asking for Baptism for your children, you are undertaking the responsibility of raising them in the faith, so that keeping God's commandments, they may love the Lord and their neighbor as Christ has taught us.
Do you understand this responsibility?"
PARENTS: "We do."
(To the godparents) "Are you ready to help the parents of these children in their duty?"
GODPARENTS: "We are"
"Dear children, the Church of God receives you with great joy. In her name I sign you with the Sign of the Cross of Christ our Savior; then, after me, your parents and godparents will do the same."
- from the order of Baptism of Children
FROM THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones." Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:
- He who loves his son will not spare the rod. . . . He who disciplines his son will profit by him.
- Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
FAMILY FAITH FORMATION YEAR 2024 - 2025
OUR "FINDING GOD" FORMATION CURRICULUM IS FOR ALL CHILDREN FROM KINDERGARTEN THRU THE EIGHTH GRADE
(Children in the 4th grade and up who need to make their 1st Communion will take part in the
"God's Gift" Intermediate Sacramental preparation program)
Finding God
Published by Loyola Press, "Finding God" integrates the fundamental themes of the Catechism of the Catholic Church with Scripture and Catholic Social Teachings. Classes take place on Saturday mornings.
"Finding God" provides lessons in the faith and delivers those lessons through activities that not only help learn about what it means to be a Catholic but also encourages lifelong practice of the faith.