Religious Education for Our Catholic Youth

Religious Education

Registration

To help us prepare, please register your child by September 8th for the 2025-2026 Religious Education Program at Saint Michael. Catholic Faith Formation Sessions are for those students from Grades 1 through 8. Classes begin September 24th.

Religious Education Registration ENROLL HERE

We Welcome

New Parishioners

If you have not become a parishioner yet and your children are at the age to start Religious Education, now is a great time to help grow Saint Michael Parish!

Become a Parishioner REGISTER HERE

Being Catholic is not an idea, project or an item list. It is not going into a class or a mere intellectual activity. It is more than an outlook on life or belief. It is not a label, a bumper sticker or a tagline.

To be Catholic is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The Catholic Faith is a personal contact with God which touches our innermost being and places us in front of the living God. I can speak to Him, love Him and enter into communion with Him. As a Catholic, we see God's presence constantly at work to redeem and sanctify His children, who are wounded by sin. We learn to grow in holiness and to deepen our relationship with Christ by living the faith in the midst of the Church.

But at the same time that being Catholic is personal, it is also inseparably communal. To be Catholic is to be introduced into a community of ‘we’, sons and daughters of God, a pilgrim community of brothers and sisters.

As such, the family household is the most essential location of the Catholic Faith. Each Catholic parent's primary duty is to be a spiritual parent who helps shape his/her children in their Catholic identity. The parish community supports, augments, and nourishes this growth, but can never take over the parents' role in being the first and best teachers of the Faith. This is the vocation of the Catholic family.

The Holy Family

The Christian family is the first cell of the whole Church. It is the place where we begin the journey toward holiness and become more fully human. The Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, became one of us. He was born into a human family. That was neither accidental nor incidental. There, in what the late Pope Paul VI called the "School of Nazareth", we can learn the way of love...Every moment of his time among us, Jesus was saving the world, recreating it from within. Jesus spent 30 of his 33 earthly years in Nazareth.

There, in the holy habitation of Nazareth, He forever transformed family life. Now, He teaches us how to live in His presence, if we will enroll in the "School of Nazareth". From antiquity, the Christian family has rightly been called a "domestic church." In our life within the Christian family, Jesus Christ is truly present...

The Religious Education program at Saint Michael Parish is designed to help families develop the tools to pass the Faith on to their children, to grow together as a family bonded together by their Catholic Faith, and to deepen their understanding of Catholicism.

Worshipping together at the Lord's Day Mass (Saturday vigil Mass or Sunday Mass) and learning to live their faith in everyday life is the way parents fulfill this vocation and journey with their children to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Our vision for Religious Education is designed to encourage our families to take this journey together, to share their faith with each other, to help each other grow in their vocation, and to discover together the beauty of being Catholic.

Religious Education Program at Saint Michael Parish for the School Year 2025-2026

Dear Saint Michael Students and Parents,

Welcome back for a brand new and exciting year of faith formation! We hope you had a relaxing summer and a much needed break from the busyness that comes with the school year.

We are excited to present you with this new, innovative approach to Religious Education.

Please email Deacon Jared or Lori Morton or send a form message on our website with any questions you may have. As always, we will be eager to hear your feedback as the year progresses. If we can do anything to assist your family, do not hesitate to reach out.

Sincerely Yours,

Fr. Bert, Deacon Jared & the Saint Michael Parish Staff

Religious Education Registration ENROLL HERE

Meet Our Clergy and Staff VIEW HERE

Religious Education: Family Sessions

Sessions

Session Time: Students and parents meet once per month on Wednesdays at 6:00PM (see the dates listed). Both students and parents are required to attend. We anticipate each session to be 75 minutes. A typical session approximately concludes at 7:15PM.

Arrival: At the start of each session, all are to meet in the upper church for sign-in at the beginning of the session.

Parents are to remain in the upper church and hear from a guest speaker that we have specifically chosen to on topics that we hope you'll find relevant, interesting and helpful. We have speakers who are experts on everything from theology to child education to child psychology.

Students will be brought to their classroom in the parish center with their teachers, all of whom are young, professional teachers in Catholic schools. They have designed lessons that will engage the students, making the one-hour class educational, enjoyable, and interesting. At the end of the class, the teachers and volunteers will bring the students back to the upper church.

Session Dates for 2025-2026

Because this model is dependent on guest speakers and professional teachers, there is no opportunity to make up missed lessons.

We are asking you to make these 8 evenings a priority over other extracurricular activities. Please reserve these dates in your calendar now so as to avoid conflicts.

All sessions start at 6:00PM

September 24th, Wednesday
October 29th, Wednesday
November 19th, Wednesday
December 10th, Wednesday (Advent night of reflection)
January 14th, Wednesday
February 25th, Wednesday
March 25th, Wednesday
April 15th, Wednesday
April 29th, Wednesday: First Communion and Confirmation students only**

**Families with students in either First Communion (2nd grade) or Confirmation (grades 7 & 8) will be required to attend an additional class on Wednesday April 29th.

Religious Education: Mass Attendance and Participation

The Mass

Worshipping together at the Lord's Day Mass (Saturday vigil Mass or Sunday Mass) is the center of our faith and is the center of our parish, including our Religious Education Program.

Attending and participating in Sunday Mass is required during the faith formation school year and as Catholics, obligatory throughout our lives.

Mass Attendance Cards

To help families with our obligation of participating at Mass, students will receive attendance cards at the first session on Wednesday, September 24th. These cards are required throughout the Religious Education Program.

While exiting the church, students must have their cards stamped at the conclusion of Mass by the volunteers. The Mass concludes after the celebrant priest has proceeded

If you attend Sunday Mass at another parish, you may keep a bulletin of that week as proof of attendance. Mass attendance cards are returned to be recorded once in December and again in the spring.

Families enrolled in the Religious Education program, and especially those seeking First Communion and Confirmation for their children must demonstrate that Sunday Mass is a priority for their family. Of course, sicknesses and other truly unavoidable circumstances will arise and keep some families from attending Mass from time to time. We ask that you simply note those things on the Mass card.