We are excited and grateful that for the 2022-2023 school year, we will be shifting our model of faith formation
from one exclusively child-focused to one that involves the whole family. We believe that by being assisted to fulfill their
role as primary educators of their young children, parents are helped to mature their own faith and understanding of the
teachings of the Catholic Church. This will assist the family to grow deeper into a relationship with Christ.
We invite all families, both from the school and from the parish, and all parishioners to join us one Sunday per month for a two-hour Family Faith Formation event. All are invited to attend 10:30 Mass, share lunch together, enjoy a short presentation or craft, and then participate in an activity specific to their developmental stage or age.
Parents will attend an adult formation moment while children will be guided by catechists to explore the same topic. Our themes and topics will follow the liturgical year.
Additionally, our CGS classes for preschool-grade three children will continued to be offered once weekly in the evening. Sacramental preparation (First Reconciliation, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation) will also involve
additional meetings and retreats throughout the year (see calendar). Our other Faith Formation groups, called to discover
God in friendship and belonging, will follow the schedule below:
Fellowship of the Keys (6-7-8 graders), will meet on Wednesday evenings and 2 vacations each year
High School Youth Group will meet on Tuesday evenings plus days of outing through the year as well as charitable work and vacations together
The detailed monthly schedule as well as the calendar for the year are available online. Registration is available online. You will register your family for the Sunday event and then each child for their specific age group. Families with children at the school of St. Peter will only register the family as their children will be enrolled in catechism and sacramental preparation classes through the school. Please note there are two separate registrations forms for
this reason.
Family Faith Formation
The aim of faith formation is to effectively pass on the faith; to impart the Truth to others. At the heart of this ‘passing on’ is the person of Jesus Christ. Our work in Faith Formation is to nurture an environment where others can be open to an
encounter with Him and be helped to identify His Presence and Significance in their lives. There is no better place than
communal, shared family life to begin to experience this– His Presence every day, in every aspect of life. Whether we
identify our education ministry as ‘family formation’ or not, the fact remains that it is the life of the family that forms the
early faith of the child.
General Directory for Catechesis 255: The family as a locus of catechesis has a unique privilege: transmitting the Gospel by rooting it in the context of profound human values. On this human base, Christian initiation is more profound: the awakening of the sense of God; the first steps in prayer; education of the moral conscience; formation of in the Christian sense of human love understood as a reflection of the love of God the Father, the Creator. It is, indeed, a Christian education more witnessed than taught, more occasional than systematic, more on-going and daily than structured into periods.
St. John Paul II speaking of his father: “...his example was in a way my first seminary, a kind of domestic seminary”(Gift and Mystery: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination, 1999)
General Directory for Catechesis 178: In a certain sense nothing replaces family catechesis, especially for its positive and receptive environment, for the example of adults, and for its first explicit experience and practice of the faith.
Education that involves families benefits the whole family
"The mentality of delegating the education of faith to “experts” has been perceived to be effective in a different time and
culture but has resulted in the loss or weakening of an essential aspect of the parental vocation. By being assisted to fulfill
their role as primary educators of their young children, parents are helped to mature their own faith and understanding of
the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Declaration on Christian Education 3: Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking.
Catechesis in Our Time 68: The parents themselves profit from the effort that this demands of them, for in a catechetical dialogue of this sort each individual both receives and gives. Encouragement... must be given...to help parents to perform their task: the service they are doing to catechesis is beyond measure
General Directory for Catechesis 227: By means of personal contact, meetings, courses, and also adult catechesis directed toward parents, the Christian community must help them assume their responsibility - which is particularly delicate today - of educating their children in the faith.
Education that involves families impacts culture
Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Families have their identity, given to them in fullness by God. We desire to explore, empower, and rediscover the primary
role of families in the work of catechesis and evangelization. We endeavor to foster a culture that supports the religious
sense of all, providing guidance and instruction to promote understanding, and nurturing an environment where all can
experience Christ’s love, enabling them to go out and share it with the world.
Catechesis in Our Time 68: Family catechesis therefore precedes, accompanies and enriches all other forms of catechesis...in places where anti-religious legislation endeavors even to prevent education in the faith and in places where widespread unbelief or invasive secularism makes real religious growth practically impossible, “the church of the home” remains the one place where children and young people can receive an authentic catechesis.
Declaration on Christian Education 3: Let parents, then, recognize the inestimable importance a truly Christian family has for the life and progress of God’s own people.
Dogmatic Constitution of the Church 35: ...where Christianity pervades the entire mode of family life, ala gradually transforms it, one will find there both the practice and an excellent school of they lay apostolate...the Christian family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to come.