Queen of Apostles Parish

Sacramental Program

 

“The preparation and the celebration for school-aged children is ideally family focused, parish-based and school supported.”

Registration Information

Parents and Guardians may register their children in the 2011 Parish Sacramental Program.

 

All catholic primary school age children in our Parish are welcome to register whether they attend Queen of Apostles school or whether they attend a state/non-catholic school. As part of their Sacramental Preparation state school children are required to attend Catechism classes within our After-school Parish Religious Education Program on Saturdays from 9.30am to 10.30am in the Parish centre. All children will receive the Sacraments together.

 

To register your child, please come to the Parish House on February 12th at 9.30am, after which you may complete the required forms and pay the yearly fee of $40 per child or $50 for two or more children, to a member of the Catechetical Team in the Parish centre. The Sacramental Commitment Mass will be one of the weekend Masses of February 19th & 20th for Confirmation, February 26th & 27th for Reconciliation and March 12th & 13th for Eucharist.  It is compulsory to attend the Commitment Mass.

 

 

Which Sacrament?

In the Archdiocese of Perth, children normally receive the Sacraments in Primary School.

 

Year 3: Sacrament of Reconciliation
(Penance)

 

Year 4: Sacrament of the Eucharist
(Holy Communion)

Year 6: Sacrament of Confirmation

Older children are welcome to join the program. For children attending the After-School Religious Education Program there is a compulsory two year preparation period for the Sacrament of Confirmation. Year 6 children will receive the Sacrament only if they attend the year 5 Pre-Confirmation class the previous year.

Children need to have been baptised before receiving any of the other Sacraments.

 

Parent Meetings

As part of the program parents will be required to attend parent meetings and parent-and-child workshops in the weeks leading up to the celebration of the Sacraments.

   

   Family Focused

The church teaches that the responsibility for initiating children into the Church through preparation of the sacraments belongs firstly with parents.

The family is the basic unit of the faith community. Children are presented for initiation into the church at Baptism by their parents, whose role in fostering a child's life of faith is so crucial that nothing else can replace it.

It is within the family that faith is received and nurtured and so the family is the primary focus for sacramental preparation. Times of sacramental preparation are moments of grace for nurturing the faith of the whole family and of the parish community.

 

   Parish Based

It is within the parish that children are welcomed, their initiation into the faith celebrated and their journey into Christian maturity nourished and sustained.

The parish provides the experience of belonging to a community of faith that is constant throughout the different phases of life, a place where all the initiated should feel at home.

It is the parish, as the place of the Christian community, which co-ordinates the activities involved in preparing the child for the Sacraments. Working with the family, the school, parish Ministers and Clergy, the parish ensures that all requirements necessary to bring children to the Sacraments are attended to in good time.

In this way the Parish will both nourish and be nourished by the faith of the children and their families.

 

   School Supported

Catholic schools, by nature of their mission and mandate, have a direct responsibility to support family and parish in the preparation of children to receive the Sacraments.

In the same way, the Parish Religious Education Program (PREP) is designed to support you in providing the same preparation when your child is attending a non-Catholic school.

There is always the underlying respect for the primary role of parents in the faith education of their children, while at the same time offering support to them in that role.

Both the school and the PREP program do this by providing knowledge and understanding through the religious education program and by providing an environment which witnesses to and teaches gospel values.