Components of the Confirmation Program

Calendar

Small Group Meetings

Small group meetings allow students to get to know one another as they prepare for the Sacrament of Confirmation. In this preparation process, small groups cover curricular materials regarding some of the most important themes of Catholic life and teaching: Reason and Revelation, the Humanity and Divinity of Jesus, Mary the Mother of God, the dignity of the human person, the Paschal Mystery, the Mission of the Catholic Church, Morality, Liturgy, the Sacraments, and the Holy Spirit. Additionally, they are conduit of information regarding different dimensions of the Confirmation Program here at St. John Vianney: service to the marginalized, the prayer decathlon, letters to the Bishop, selecting a sponsor, and more. All small groups meet here at St. John Vianney on select Sunday evenings.

Retreats

Please note that Confirmation retreats are not like a drop-in class at the gym. A great deal of work goes into planning and preparing for a specific number of students attending the requested retreat dates.  Leaders must be found, events and activities planned, meals requested, and letters to each individual confirmand requested and sorted.   Further, and perhaps most importantly, adequate room meetings and bunk space must be reserved at the retreat center(s) for the specific amount of young men and women attending each retreat. 

The Confirmation retreat is a VERY important part of the journey towards Confirmation.  Please be advised that if your son/daughter is not able to make the retreat to which they have been assigned, it’s possible that your son/daughter will have to A) find and attend a comparable Confirmation retreat at one of the quad parishes B) attend a “catch-all” Confirmation retreat at the TYME-out center, or C) go through the Confirmation process next year at SJV when the schedule may work better for your family.

We’ve done all we can to ensure that the process of confirmation is done with great quality, and simultaneously to ensure that it is as convenient as possible for families.  Please help us in this important ministry by ensuring that your child attending the retreat to which he/she has been assigned.
 
Thank you! 

Retreat Permission Slip         Parent/Guardian Volunteer Form

Service

Service is a key component of our Catholic faith. Our expectation is that you complete 20 hours of service prior to your Confirmation.  These hours must take the form of direct service to the marginalized. This is the minimum; you are more than welcome to exceed these expecations. All of these hours need to be completed by May 1, 2011. Download service requirements and log.

Confirmands will need to select someone—not a parent—who is a role model in faith to serve as their Confirmation sponsor. The sponsor must be a confirmed Catholic who is 16 years or older, and who is willing to accompany the youth in their faith through prayer and dialogue. More information about how to select a sponsor will be provided during small group meetings this fall/winter.

Download Sponsor/Name Selection Form

Prayer Decathlon

The  idea of a prayer decathlon has emerged given the desire of St. John Vianney Parish to foreground experiences of prayer amongst Confirmands. As students in this program study what our Church believes, it is also important that they grow in their lived experience of how we practice our beliefs and how we pray as Catholics.

For this reason, each student is asked to complete the ten "events" which comprise the Prayer Decathlon. In so doing, students will grow in their awareness of different ways to pray, and have experiences of some of these different prayer techniques. Ideally, this will broaden their scope of the various kinds of prayer which are part of our tradition as Roman Catholics.

Letter to the Bishop