Infant Baptisms are celebrated on special Sundays throughout the year. Parents are asked to call the rectory well in advance. A special program of preparation is offered for all parents.
Couples are asked to please contact the Parish Office a minimum of six months prior to the anticipated wedding in order to begin the marriage preparation program.
To arrange for Eucharist and / or a visit, please contact the Parish Office.
Faith Formation is starting up again soon! Please see the following letter from Father Mattison.
Hello everyone,
Calls have been coming in about a program of faith formation for the youngsters of the Catholic Parishes of Colchester. It is exciting and encouraging to know that parents actually care about such things in the midst of so much else going on.
It is exciting, too, because YT (yours’ truly – aka tm or ‘The Management’ or Father Thomas Mattison) is the new-to-you faith formator this year.
The big news is that that the youngsters from Holy Cross Parish and those from Our Lady of Grace Parish will be having classes at the same time and in the same place this year; at the Colchester School and from 6:15pm to 7:30pm on every Monday that the kids have school. For the sake of convenient nomenclature, then, the program will now be called Faith Formation for the Catholics of Colchester.
Why this time change? Well think about it a bit. Because of the Mass schedule, I cannot be around on Sunday mornings for the Holy Cross program. Mrs Herschberger has given up the role of Religious Education Coordinator, and so, Our Lady of Grace’s kids need someone in that position: YT.
The number of students is not large. In some grades, too small for effective instructional methods. This will increase the ‘critical mass’ of participants.
We will be using every willing catechist or catechetical assistant from either Parish (and/or both) so that there are solid and relatable adult Christians doing the formation. Witness is probably the most important thing a catechist provides. Information can be had from a book.
Finally, exposure to Catholics who call other venues “home” brings youngsters to an awareness that Catholicism is not just something that their ‘goofy’ parents insist on. This, too, is a witness and one that offers a hope that kids trained in an inter-parish program of faith formation will carry on when they leave home in a supra-parish program of Catholic life – they will take their faith with them.
Specifics of schedule and venue for programs that support the catechetical endeavor and for those bits of liturgical life that constitute the ‘total immersion’ element of faith formation need to be worked out.
To that end, I am calling a meeting of all parents/guardians and catechists for October 2,2022, at 6:15pm Our Lady of Grace Parish Hall.
At that time we will provide instructional materials, safe environment details and general introductions. Additionally, we will be talking about ‘tweaks’ to the program that will involve all of us more committedly to the work of witnessing. After all, parents are the first and the most effective teachers of their children in the Christian life.
YT,