Blessed - First Communion Supplement Videos from Dynamiccatholic.com

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Many have asked what kind of COVID restrictions we will be following for PSR this year.  We recently received the following guidelines from the Diocese of Belleville.  We will follow these as long as the Diocese keeps them in place.

Beginning Fall, 2021 School Year, all schools and religious education programs will return to in-person learning with a normal schedule.

• Students benefit from in-person learning and safely returning to in-person instruction in the fall 2021 is a priority.
• Masks are required for all individuals, aged 2 or older, while indoors at the beginning of the year for all religious education programs.
• Programs should maintain at least 3 feet of physical distance between students within the classrooms, combined with indoor mask-wearing, to reduce transmission risk.
• When it is not possible to maintain a physical distance of at least 3 feet, it is especially important to continue with multiple prevention strategies (hand sanitizing, masking, hand washing, etc.)
• Students, teachers and staff should stay home when exhibiting signs of any infectious illness and be referred to their healthcare provider for testing and care.
• Localities should monitor community transmission, and occurrence of outbreaks to guide each location.
• Masking is required of all passengers and drivers on buses and other transportation used for a program-related activity.

Next date: 

Sunday, March 5, 2023
When:  During the 10:00am Mass.  
Who:  Children - Ages 3 through 4th Grade
What:  A mini-lesson is taught and the children participate in a Gospel-related activity
                 

Additional 2023 Dates:

March 19
April 16
May 7

FIRST SACRAMENTS  - follow this link for more details
Children who are baptized and will be in the second grade typically receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist.

We Believe…
 
Parents are the first and best teachers of their children. 
Parents share with catechists the responsibility to lead children closer to God through Jesus, and to help children develop living, conscious, and active faith.  Parents remain the first and foremost educators of their children in the home and through cooperation with the Children's Faith Formation (CFF) program.
 
The curriculum used in the CFF is meant to support and develop the threefold purpose of Catechesis:  message, community, and service.
 
All Christians, and parents and catechists in particular, are called to participate in the catechetical ministry of the Church by sharing faith, proclaiming God’s message, developing community, leading people to worship and prayer, and by motivating people to serve others.
 
 
The Role Parents as Educators of the Faith
 
The Catechism of the Catholic Church has much to say about this topic:
 
The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.  (#2221)
 
Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons.  Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.  (#2222)
 
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.  (#2223)
 
Parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children.  Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the “first heralds” for their children.  (#2225)
 
Education in the faith by parents should begin in the child’s earliest years.  This already happens when family members help one another grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel.  Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith.  Parents have a mission of teaching their children how to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God.  The parish is the Eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of families; it is a privileged place for the catechesis of children and parents.  (#2226)
 
Children in turn contribute to the growth in holiness of their parents.  Each and everyone should be generous and tireless in forgiving one another for offenses, quarrels, injustices, and neglect.  Mutual affection suggests this.  The charity of Christ demands it.  (#2227)
 
Parents’ respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and spiritual needs. As the children grow up, the same respect and devotion lead parents to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom.  (#2228)
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                                     BE A FAMILY
 
You are to be a family, to be that presence of Christ to each other.
                                             
God has sent the family to be His love.
 
Love each other tenderly as Jesus loves each one of you.
 
Jesus is always there to love, to share, to be the joy of our life.
 
Jesus’ love for us is unconditional, tender, forgiving, and complete.
 
Just allow people to see Jesus in you, to see how you pray, to see how you lead your life,

  to  see how you deal with your family, to see how much peace is in your family.
 
Thoughtfulness is the beginning of great sanctity. 
 
If you learn this art of being thoughtful, you will become more and more Christ like, for                      
  His heart was meek and he always thought of the needs of others.
 
If we have that kind of thoughtfulness for each other, our homes would really

  become the abode of God most high.
 
 
                                                      Saint Teresa of Calcutta