FAITH FORMATION

The family is the Domestic Church and the center of faith formation for Catholics. Every person in the pews, every Catholic in the parish community…child or adult…is on their own journey toward Christ and a life of discipleship. Our faith formation program at St. Joseph Cathedral is designed from our youngest members to adult members in mind.

We invite all families of the parish to participate in our Families of Faith program! We use Sophia Institute Press A Family of Faith curriculum which is geared towards the domestic church. We meet once a month on a Wednesday evening from 6:00-7:30. Parents enjoy fellowship and discussion on the monthly topic, while all children ages 3 years old- grade 8 meet in their own classes with their catechist. This is a time for both catechesis and fellowship and for building relationships with one another within our parish as well as growing in our knowledge and love our Lord and our beautiful Catholic faith! Any child desiring to receive a sacrament is incorporated into our Families of Faith program, with extra sacrament preparation built into the program.

“Families of Faith” is open to all our parish families (children and parents) whether you have a child in sacrament preparation or not. If you are an expectant parent, have a newborn baby, or are parents of older children whose children do not come to classes, you are welcome to join us! In your case, please register on our parish website and come to our first class in September! Our parent classes are beneficial and very helpful for parents of all stages of life who wish to lead their families in the ways of our Lord and His Church. If you wish to purchase the “A Family of Faith” (Sophia Institute Press) books, then please pay the registration fee, but if you prefer to come just to participate in the catechesis once a month, you do not need the books and therefore, do not need to pay the registration fee. We hope you’ll join us!

Please contact Kelly Bender (faithformation@stjosephcathedralnh.org) for more information about how to get started on the sacramental preparation process!

List of Services

Christian husbands and wives are cooperators in grace and witnesses of faith for each other, their children, and all others in their household. They are the first to communicate the faith to their children and to educate them by word and example for the Christian and apostolic life. They prudently help them in the choice of their vocation and carefully promote any sacred vocation which they may discern in them. It has always been the duty of Christian married partners but today it is the greatest part of their apostolate to manifest and prove by their own way of life the indissolubility and sacredness of the marriage bond, strenuously to affirm the right and duty of parents and guardians to educate children in a Christian manner, and to defend the dignity and lawful autonomy of the family. They and the rest of the faithful, therefore, should cooperate with men of good will to ensure the preservation of these rights in civil legislation and to make sure that governments give due attention to the needs of the family regarding housing, the education of children, working conditions, social security, and taxes; and that in policy decisions affecting migrants their right to live together as a family should be safeguarded.4 Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to 2 have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor. Here, too, they find their first experience of a wholesome human society and of the Church.

-Vatican II: Gravissimum educationis (Oct. 28, 1965): paragraph 3

Faith Formation

List of Services