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Dear 7th grade parents,
We will be having a parent meeting on October 13 to provide you
with information about the Sacrament of Confirmation and about how to help
your child prepare. This meeting is scheduled later than it has been in past
years because September seems to be such a jam-packed month for all of you
that I thought it might be easier to have this particular meeting a bit
later. However, it does mean that by the time we meet it will only be
another month until the students will be here for Candidate/Sponsor night.
As this name implies, they will need to have chosen a sponsor by November
12. And so I just wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of the
requirements for sponsors. They are the following:
A parent cannot be a sponsor for one’s own child
The sponsor must be a confirmed, practicing Catholic over the age of
16
The sponsor must be in good standing—which means that the person may
not be divorced and remarried outside of the Catholic Church
A godparent is a very appropriate choice for sponsor since Confirmation is
so intimately connected with Baptism. If a godparent would still be a
suitable choice, I encourage your child to ask one of them.
While it is obviously optimal for the sponsor to be able to attend the event
on November 12, I do realize that this is not possible in all cases. Many of
your children may choose a sponsor who lives out of town. If this is the
case, then a parent or some other responsible person may attend the
Candidate/ Sponsor Night with your child. (Only one adult should attend.)
The role of the sponsor is to assist the candidate in preparing for the
sacrament in some meaningful way and to stand before the archbishop in May
and affirm that this candidate is indeed ready for the Sacrament. This means
that the sponsor and candidate do need to have some type of interaction,
whether it is face-to-face or via phone/email/skype, etc. We provide the
sponsors with a book that accompanies the Confirmation text so that they can
follow along when the children start studying that book in the spring.
I hope that this information is helpful as you and your child choose a
sponsor. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Mary Anne Bressler
Pastoral Associate
St. Mary Church
2853 Erie Ave.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45208
513-321-1207
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