SACRAMENTAL PREPARATION
Since our Catholic faith is essentially a way of life and not merely a subject to be taught, we try to use everyday experiences linked to encourage the pupils to consider how best to love God and their neighbour. Formal religious instruction is developed using This is Our Faith Guidelines. This programme includes work on Other World Religions at certain stages and Sacramental Preparation at P3 and P4.
We are very well served by Christ the King Parish. The Parish Priest, Fr. Peter, regularly visits our school. He leads the preparations for the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Holy Eucharist and Confirmation and regularly celebrates Mass with pupils and staff.
Sacrament of Reconciliation
First Confession for children is usually celebrated during Lent with Fr. Peter organising a meeting for Parents/Carers in January.
The picture above links to a presentation which may be useful if your child is preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Please take some time to look through this. It gives valuable information about pupils' Home Sessions in their handbooks. Feel free to contact the school if you have any questions. This year, the Sacrament was celebrated on Monday 26th March for pupils in St. Fillan's Primary School and St. Mirin's Primary School.
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First Communion
First Communion for P4 children is usually celebrated during May with Fr. Peter informing Parents/Carers of dates via the Parish Bulletin around six months prior to the Sacrament. A meeting for Parents/Carers is held in February with another short meeting scheduled the week before pupils' celebrate the Sacrament.
Dates for First Communion:
P4A and P4B pupils - Saturday, 4th May 2019 @ 1pm
P4C pupils - Sunday, 5th May 2019 @ 2pm
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Sacrament of Confirmation
In recent years, The Sacrament of Confirmation was celebrated prior to Holy Eucharist. However, in 2014, Archbishop Tartaglia decided to change the order of the Sacraments.
This year, Primary 7 pupils will be given the opportunity to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation on Wednesday, 30th May @ 7pm in the Parish of Christ the King.
The Archbishop's letter to Parents/Carers:
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ
I have decided that, from now on in the Archdiocese of Glasgow, the Confirmation of baptised children will take place around age 11 when children are in P7, their final year of Primary School.
This decision was motivated principally by pastoral concerns. It seemed sensible to prolong the period of sacramental initiation of baptized children to give parents a longer time to accompany their children through the reception of the sacraments and to make the best of the efforts of Catholic teachers and parish catechists. I felt too that Confirmation will mean more to children who are a little older. And I imagine that most people would agree that it will be spiritually more satisfying to celebrate Confirmation at Mass when the newly-confirmed children can receive our Lord in Holy Communion as the centre and high-point of their sacramental life.
It is also very helpful that the new RE Syllabus for our Catholic schools, This is Our Faith, fully allows for children to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation at P7, P6 and P4, with age-appropriate learning. In fact, the material on Confirmation for P7 in This is Our Faith is of a very high order. Our P7 Children and their teachers will thus be able to access the appropriate material within the very syllabus which is currently being used in our schools.
So, I would envisage that the Mass of Confirmation will be celebrated each year in P7 in the time from Easter until around the Feast of the Sacred Heart (usually mid-June). Since the bishop is the ordinary minister of Confirmation (and since I love doing Confirmations!), I will celebrate as many of these Confirmation Masses as I can. Since at the moment we have 90+ parishes, I certainly will not be able to do them all, and Parish Priests will obviously be delegated to celebrate Masses of Confirmation, as they are now for the Rite of Confirmation.
So the next "season" for the Confirmation of baptized children in the Archdiocese of Glasgow will be in the final term of school year 2017-18, which gives us 4 years to prepare for this small change to our sacramental practice for baptised children, and we should be able to put all the practical arrangements in place in that time.
The timings of First Confession at P3 and of First Holy Communion at P4 remain unchanged.
Having heard the Council of Priests on this matter, and having consulted many people - priests, parents and teachers - I am confident that this new arrangement for Confirmation, which I have seen in practice, will enhance our efforts to transmit the faith to our children and young people, and to evangelize families, parishes and school communities.
Yours devotedly in the Lord,
†Philip Tartaglia
Archbishop of Glasgow