Faith Formation Grades 1-12
Faith is both a gift from God and our free response to God.
The Faith Formation Department of St. Jerome recognizes and holds to the highest importance that parents are the primary spiritual directors of your children.
We understand our role to be supportive of your family’s faith development by empowering you and your children to share, celebrate, and live your Catholic faith at home and in the world. Faith includes not only the intellectual understanding of doctrine but also a conversion of heart which affects our way of life. Faith is to be lived in community. Being a person of faith means looking at our actions and the world in a different way as all of life changes when we see things and people through the eyes of Jesus. If you have any questions, or would like more information, please contact Diane Orban by phone at 602-467-4908 or by email at dorban@saintjerome.org.
Welcome to Faith Formation at St. Jerome Parish.
All of our Faith Formation is Lectionary Based.
That means that we use the Scripture Readings for the Upcoming Sunday as our “curriculum.”
Instead of having a text book in the classroom model, we use resources to teach about the Liturgical Year and the Lectionary. There is an opening prayer or ritual, a reflection on the liturgical season and any relevant solemnities, feasts or memorials using a liturgical calendar. We use the full text of the Sunday Gospel. For the younger children, we use the Children’s Lectionary with more appropriate language for the children’s level of understanding. We focus on the Church Teaching so that we can see how the message corresponds with Church documents and then use Gospel related activities to help the children put the message into action. When the children in Faith Formation attend mass regularly, they begin to relate what they are learning in their weekly session with the Sunday Gospel.
Other activities are weaved into the Faith Formation sessions. Using methods for all kinds of learning, we offer a “Teaching Mass” for the whole family. Church tours and Stations of the Cross during Lent as well as different activities and opportunities in the classroom help us to become one community as we celebrate the liturgical seasons and devotions of our Church.
For the older students, there are opportunities to become familiar with different groups. Life Teen and Amigos de Jesus organizations offer socials, retreats, and community building opportunities. As teens embrace their faith through different activities such as these, our hope is that they will gain a strong and unshakeable connection to the Church and their community.
Liturgy of the Word with Children
Let Saint Jerome teach your child the words of the Holy Scripture.
Liturgy of the Word with Children is the liturgical practice of dismissing the children from the Sunday mass and sending them forth to hear the Scripture Readings in a simpler language allowing them to participate and to understand of those Readings. The children leave the Church following the Children’s Lectionary after the Opening Prayer and return to the Church during the Offertory. We celebrate Liturgy of the Word with Children during the 10:00 mass in English and the 1:00 mass in Spanish. All children in Kindergarten through third grade are invited to join us for this celebration of the Word.
Purpose of the Program
Helping them hear the Word of God proclaimed at the Sunday worship.
Helping them receive God’s Word in their hearts and respond to it in their family life and elsewhere.
Leading them in Prayers of the Faithful and Creed.
Helping them present themselves to God in the offertory
Class Days and Times
Grades One through Eight: Tuesday or Wednesday evenings from 6:45-8:00p.m.
Grades Nine through Twelve: Sunday 11:15-12:30p.m.
All classes are held at St. Jerome School