Religious Education

Carmela D'Amato

Sacrament of Confirmation

Last Tuesday evening our Confirmation Candidates, long with their families and sponsors attended a family faith night in preparation for recieving this wonderful sacrament.

As a family, they discussed what confirmation means to them, why we  need to choose a sponsor,  how  confirmation can make us  different and why  we choose a saints name. The conversation that was taking place was rich in wonder and knowledge. These 4 question prompts will now also be discussed in class. We look forward to seeing how much more learning takes place about the sacrament of confirmation and everything it entails. Thank you to father Cartwright for leading us in catechises about this sacrament. 

We ask that as a school community you pray for our confirmation candidates. We have added our faith friends posters at the back of the church. Please add your name to their poster to show that you are praying for them during this preparation time.

Some changes to Confirmation

As you may all be aware by now, Melbourne has a new Archbishop.   As of the 2nd August, Archbishop Peter Comensoli will be replacing Archbishop Dennis Hart who has been our Archbishop for the past 15 years. Archbishop Comensoli will be coming to St Fidelis to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation with the Year 6 candidates.  Archbishop Comensoli has requested that confirmation occurs without mass.  This means that  the bread and wine will not be blessed and Eucharist will not be handed out  during Confirmation.   

We thank Archbishop Hart for all that he has done as a priest and Archbishop and wish Archbishop Comensoli the best of luck as he begins his ministry.

Thank you

During my last 3 years as Religious Education Leader at St Fidelis, I have had the pleasure of being involved in so many special moments. I've been lucky enough to take students to the church regularly to practice readings, pray with students, explain various parts of the mass, organise parish functions and act as a liaison between school and church and many, many more opportunities to talk about God's love for us.  I've also been so blessed to have led our implementation of the RE Curriculum which is an exciting document for us as educators. Our new curriculum really gives teachers and students the opportunity to talk and learn about our catholic tradition and how it links to our everyday actions. 

To all of the families at St Fidelis, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of your child's sacraments. Being able to prepare them for these special moments in their lives has been wonderful. I pray and hope that they may always be able to turn to God in good times and bad. May they know God's love always. 

To all of the students at St Fidelis, thank you for being so prayerful each and every time we attend church, or pray as a school, or even at prayer time in your classrooms. Thank you for the way that you enjoy talking about your faith and God. May you always remember God's love for you.

To all of the staff at St Fidelis, thank you for embracing the RE curriculum and the Catholic Social teachings in the way that you have, knowing that our students are the ones who benefit from your detailed  planning.  Thank you to the office staff and leadership team for always being open to discussion about prayer and to discussing questions that we may have had. May you all continue to be guided by the Holy Spirit  when you come together to plan and teach our students. 

Thank you once again, I will dearly miss the St Fidelis school community.

Carmela D'Amato