Confirmation Program

The Sacrament of Confirmation deepens our baptismal life that calls us to be missionary witnesses of Jesus Christ in our families, neighborhoods, society, and the world. Through Confirmation, our personal relationship with Christ is strengthened. However, our faith is not meant to be a private faith. We receive the message of faith in a deeper and more intensive manner with great emphasis given to the person of Jesus Christ, who asked the Father to give the Holy Spirit to the Church for building up the community in loving service. The Holy Spirit bestows seven gifts—wisdom, understanding, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, piety, and fear of the Lord—to assist us in our mission and witness. The impact of these gifts accompanies us in the various stages of our spiritual development.

Our Faith Formation team is excited to partner with you in forming Saints! We’ll do our best to help your child learn the ins and outs of our Catholic faith and prepare to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, but our faith formation program is just one ingredient in the recipe of faith. If the other ingredients are missing, the faith won’t rise. Preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation begins at home. Parents are the first and primary educators of their children and overwhelmingly have the largest influence on the faith life of their children. “Parents are the primary educators” isn’t just a slogan schools use. It’s a fact supported by research. If you’re not taking it seriously, your child won’t either. Dropping your child off at classes once a week or enrolling them in ASA won’t keep them Catholic if the faith is not being lived at home and modeled by the parents. Please attend Mass every Sunday and on Holy Days with your children to help establish a firm foundation. Get involved in a parish ministry or two. We have a lot of them for you to choose from. Please see below for additional suggestions below.

A special note to ASA parents:

• Sacramental prep is the responsibility of the parish. Often times when a parish also has a school, Sacramental prep is done at that school under the direction of the parish. ASA is a somewhat unique case since it is a conglomeration of four parishes. As a result, while the children are receiving an education at the school that includes a religion class, Sacramental prep is still done by the respective parishes per the diocese’s requirements.
• The children will receive their Confirmation at a Mass with other children from St. Jude parish, not through the school and not with other ASA children from other parishes (unless the diocese happens to schedule them at the same Mass).
• There is a registration fee for this program because:
  • This program is run by and financed by St. Jude, not ASA. Members of the St. Jude staff facilitate it. Our Youth Minister who teaches the class for the St. Jude ASA students is the St. Jude Youth Minister, not the ASA Youth Minister.
  • Registration, paperwork, and record keeping is done by the respective parishes, not the school.
  • Your tuition to ASA stays at ASA – it does not go back to the parish. On the contrary…
  • St. Jude pays for nearly half of your child’s tuition (if you have more than one child, the percentage increases to more than half). “Parish Support” isn’t a “discount” for you. St. Jude actually pays more than $4000 per St. Jude student to ASA (https://asagr.org/tuition-investment). This is real money going from St. Jude to ASA to pay for a large percentage of your child’s tuition.
  • Weekly Mass attendance and tithing are way down since 2020 and St. Jude is regularly experiencing a shortfall (as you may have noticed in the bulletin), so we are unable to absorb the cost of the program into the St. Jude budget. The St. Jude Religious Education department relies on registration fees and goodwill donations made directly to the department to fund its programs.