Monday Message, January 21, 2025
KNOW
We hope everyone enjoyed a snow day yesterday, remembering the gift of MLK and the way he shaped our world.
A new process for requesting dates for Confirmation was announced this morning. The memo from the bishop is here. The link to the form was sent to pastors on Friday. You can find it here. The Bishop would prefer that the pastors submit the information and that only one request per parish be submitted. Please note: this will be the only request for Confirmations for the entire pastoral year. There will no longer be separate fall and spring request forms. The deadline to submit this initial request is no later than Tuesday, April 1, 2025.
Meetings continue this week for the parents of confirmation candidates. All letters and information can be found here. So far, our numbers have been pretty good:
- Fairfield – 59
- Wilton – 112
- Greenwich – 159
- Stamford – 152
- Bethel – 582
Please forward the names and email addresses for all those you invited to the meeting (not just those who showed up) to Carmela as per the bishop’s request so he can follow up.
We have updated the Start with Sunday site to include marketing materials. Check it out here.
Our friends at St. Jude in Monroe have asked us to share some information about an upcoming parent retreat in March. See this flyer and this bulletin insert.
SAVE THE DATE – On May 1st Bishop Caggiano will invite all parish faith formation leaders to a strategy session to discuss how to best engage parents in the formation of their children. He will host a similar summit with principals in March. Details to follow. A similar meeting is happening in March with principals and pastors. You can read about it here to get a sense of what is coming.
LOOKING AHEAD – Foundations in Faith JPII Fund for Faith Formation will be accepting application from parishes and deaneries for grants up to $10,000 for faith formation programs. Through this competitive grant we seek to highlight programs aligning with “The One,” that demonstrate collaboration, innovation, replicability, and from historically under-resourced applicants. The application window opens on February 15 and closes on April 6 2025. If your parish or deanery has a really great idea that checks one or more of these boxes but lacks the funds to make it happen, consider applying for a grant! For more information please visit this link or contact Carol Incarnacao-Schirm.
REFLECT
For those of you able to join Sr. Johanna for her presentations last week, I would imagine that you left both talks like I did – filled with thoughts and ideas. There was one particular moment on Friday morning when Sister told the story of the very nice fifth or sixth grade catechist who kindly invited the children to all take turns reading from the text.
Afterwards, she said the class played Hangman using words from the readings.
“That teacher should have been fired,” Sister commented. Not because he advocated the death penalty (though that is problematic), but because the method serves the content.
What a great reminder. The way the catechist spent time with the materials did a disservice to the materials themselves. The content – rich with tradition and the magisterium of the Church – was not served. The children were not served.
What are we doing in our parishes to make sure the content is served well? What are we doing to make sure that Jesus is taught, instead of the text? What are we doing to make sure our areas of teaching are beautiful?
It’s these challenges that we wanted Sister Johanna to pose and, for those who attended Thursday night or Friday morning, she delivered!
Let us work together to answer these questions and make sure the rich content of the faith is well served by the methods of teaching employed in our parishes.
LAUGH