Family Faith Formation Program

Registration for the 2026-2027 Family Faith Formation program is now open.
 
This coming year’s program features some slight adjustments. We invite you to explore with us a form of education that is more than content and curriculum, that is essentially communication and communion as well. Our parish, upon recommendation from the Archdiocese of Boston, is celebrating a change in terminology from “religious education” to “family faith formation," representing an effort to deepen collaboration and a sense of family between our team of catechists, our community of parents, and our children. Ultimately, we hope to empower catechists towards a state and sense of spiritual parenthood, parents to a state and sense of vocational catechists, and accompany each other and especially our children on their spiritual journeys.

This year’s program will involve more time spent learning together as family groups. While we will still maintain our classroom lessons with ministerial catechists working with children grouped by grade, this will be accompanied by once-monthly full-family meetings. Parents are always encouraged to join their children in lessons of any format and, of course, serve as catechists. Another once-monthly event will feature special enrichment opportunities for parents while children are in their classrooms. These events will not only be important moments of teaching and learning but also excellent opportunities for fellowship for all ages. All programs will be offered at several times for accessibility: families choose whichever time is most convenient for them to attend one iteration of each program.

All programs and classes will be scheduled alongside a Mass time at our parish. Attending Mass as a family is an essential part of faith formation. The Mass is the source and summit of our entire faith; it teaches us better than any class and any class teaches us about the Mass, deepening our appreciation of one or another aspect of its significance and power. There will usually be one weekend of each month during which no classes or programs happen. Please, take these opportunities also to come to Mass together as a family and enter as fully as possible into the celebration with special focus and energy.

Registration will require you to choose a specific time for your child's traditional class so they can be assigned to a room and a catechist who will meet with them twice a month. Your selection does not need to always conform with the time of the once-monthly family-group program you choose to attend. If you need to attend the family events at different times from month to month, that’s perfectly fine. More details about the sequence of programs will be published shortly, but they will progress in accordance with the liturgical year. Curricular materials will be shared with the entire family, and we encourage you to use these not only on the weekends but throughout the week as your family lives out its vocational spirituality as a domestic church.

Again, thank you for your patience and collaboration. We will continue to depend on this as we navigate another transition; but we have bright hope for the future and absolute confidence that, so long as we do it together with charitable hearts, we will do it very well.
 

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St. Michael Parish offers a wonderful program for the children of our parish community who have special needs. Loyola Press's "Finding God" makes use of beautifully designed instructional tools and colorful hands-on materials to help the children understand the tenets of our faith.