Through symbolic immersion in the waters of baptism, you are "grafted into the paschal mystery of Christ."  In a mysterious way, you "die with him, are buried with him, and rise with him" (Sacred Liturgy, 6 [1086].  Having died to sin (both original sin and personal sins are cleansed away in the waters of baptism), you have entered the community of the Church "as through a door."  Your irrevocable baptism into Christ was the beginning of a unique lifelong vocation.  Many people exercise their baptismal calling through parish activities.  They assist the parish as liturgical ministers, religious education teachers, members of parish council, as parents in society, in social outreach ministries like Saint's Place and various other ministries.  These are only some of the ways in which baptized members of Christ's body live out the mystery of their baptismal vocation. 

Through your baptism, you share with others "the sacramental bond of unity existing among all who through it are reborn" (Decree on Ecumenism 22).  Your baptism can never be repeated because it binds you to God forever.  The bond is unbreakable.  It is possible for you to lose grace and even faith, but you cannot lose your baptism.  You are marked as one of God's own.  That same bond links you to all baptized persons in a sacramental way. You are one of us and we are all "sacrament" persons."  Together we are called to live until death the sacramental mystery into which we have been immersed

Baptismal Preparation
When you wish to have your child baptized simply call St. Patrick's Religious Education Office to acquire when the Baptism Classes are scheduled.  This meeting is an opportunity to answer your questions and to informally talk about the importance of parental faith formation responsibilities for your young child. During this meeting, we will schedule the date and time of the Baptism.  We encourage Baptisms to be scheduled during a Sunday Eucharist. When necessary baptisms can take place outside of Mass.

After attending the class and know the desired date you wish to have your child baptized, simply contact the St. Patrick's Church call (532-0942), and we will try to  schedule the date.

In its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Vatican II begins chapter 2, "The Most Sacred Mystery of the Eucharist," with these words:

"At the Last Supper, on the night when he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood.  He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until he should come again, and in this way to entrust to his beloved Bride, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the heart is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us".

This mystery is the very center and culmination of Catholic life.  It is the source and the summit of all preaching of the Gospel and the center of the assembly of the faithful.

In every Mass, Christ is present under the form of bread and wine as well as present in each of us.  In every Mass, his death becomes a present reality, offered as our sacrifice to God in an unbloody and sacramental manner.  At Mass we offer Christ, our passover sacrifice, to God, and we offer ourselves along with him.  We then receive the risen Lord, our bread of life, in Holy Communion. In doing so, we enter into the very core of the paschal mystery of our salvation, the death and resurrection of Christ.

Eating the supper of the Lord, we span all time and "proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes" (Corinthians 11:26).  Sharing this banquet of love, we become totally one body in him.  At that moment our future with God becomes a present reality.  The oneness for which we are destined is both symbolized and made real in the meal we share.  In the Mass, both past and future become really present in the mystery.

The sacrament of the Eucharist was entrusted by Christ to his bride, the Church, as spiritual nourishment and as a pledge of eternal life.  The Church continues to receive this gift with faith and love.

First Holy Communion Preparation
The First Holy Communion program is an opportunity for families to reflect together on their experience of Eucharist and to prepare children for a deeper level of participation. Parents teach their children because home is the primary place for faith formation.  The home is the most natural place for reflection on the presence of Christ in our midst.  St. Patrick supports and enriches that education with sessions that take place for children and parents together. 
The recommended age for First Eucharist is second grade. The following are some criteria to help you determine whether your child should prepare for First Eucharist:

• Has your child been participating in Sunday Mass on a regular basis?
• Has your child been participating in religious education classes through Catholic school or the parish religious education programs?
• Is your child beginning to know the responses and prayers at Mass?
• Is prayer a regular part of your child's life?
• Does your child exhibit the capacity for reverence that is necessary for sharing in the eucharistic banquet?
  

Penance is the sacrament by which we receive God's healing forgiveness for sins committed after baptism.  The rite is called reconciliation because it reconciles us not only with God but with the church community.  Both these aspects of reconciliation are important.
As members of Christ's Body, everything we do affects the whole Body. Sin wounds and weakens the Body of Christ; the healing we receive in penance restores health and strength to the Church, as well as to ourselves.
Since every sin is an offense against God, which disrupts our friendship with him, the ultimate purpose of penance is that we should love God deeply and commit ourselves completely to him.  Therefore, the sinner who by the grace of a merciful God embraces the way of penance comes back to the Father who "first loved us" (1 John 4:19), to Christ who gave himself up for us, and to the Holy Spirit who has been poured out on us abundantly.
The follower of Christ who has sinned but who has been moved by the Holy Spirit to come to the sacrament of penance should above all be converted to God with their whole heart.  This inner conversion of heart embraces sorrow for sin and the intent to lead a new life.

When a person turns aside or away from God's love, the harm is to the sinner.  Venial sin strains one's relationship with God.  Mortal sin ruptures the relationship.  Sin is a tragic reality.  But the sacrament of penance is a joyful reunion.

First Penance Preparation -
The First Penance program is an opportunity for families to reflect together on their experience of sin and forgiveness and to prepare the children to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  First Penance is an opportunity to intensify and continue the moral education already taking place in the home.

Parents are asked to prepare their children to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation by helping the child to reflect on sin, and teaching the form of confession.   

The recommended age for First Penance is Second grade. The following are some criteria to help you determine whether your child should prepare for First Penance:

• Is your child beginning to experience acceptable and regretful decision-making?
• Does your child express sorrow when they've hurt someone?
• Does your child understand the consequences of a poor decision?

Confirmation is the sacrament by which those born anew in baptism receive the seal of the Holy Spirit, the Gift of the Father.  Confirmation brings an increase and deepening of baptismal grace.  Along with Baptism and the Eucharist, Confirmation is a sacrament of initiation, initiation into the full life of the Catholic Church.  By the sacrament of Confirmation, the baptized, are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit, they are true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.  The Catholic catechism states:

"It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of Confirmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost". 

Catechism of the Catholic Church #1302

In the celebration of Confirmation there is a two-fold action.  First, the laying of hands on the candidates by the Bishop and concelebrants.  This is the biblical gesture by which the gift of the Holy Spirit is invoked.  And second, while anointing you with the Sacred Chrism (blessed mixture of olive oil and balsam), the celebrant addresses you, using your chosen confirmation name saying: "[Name] be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit."  These words unite us more firmly to Christ and enhance the spiritual gifts of wisdom, understanding, right judgment, courage, knowledge, reverence and wonder and awe in God's presence.  As Saint Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus, "In him you also.were sealed with the promised holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance." (Ephesians 1:13-14).  This giving of the Holy Spirit connects believers more perfectly to Christ and strengthens them so that they may bear witness to Christ for the building up of his body in faith and love.  They are so marked with the character or seal of the Lord that the sacrament of confirmation cannot be repeated. 

Confirmation Preparation -
Along with Baptism and Eucharist, Confirmation is a sacrament of Christian Initiation.  Confirmation is a sealing of Baptism and the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit as a gift.  The Confirmation program is a special time for the candidates to explore, deepen and strengthen their faith.  The candidates are themselves choosing their Catholic faith as a way of life.

The recommended age for Confirmation is the Eleventh grade.  The following are some criteria to help you determine whether your child should prepare for Confirmation:

• Willingness to participate in the preparation program at this time
• Regular participation in Sunday Eucharist
• Regular participation in Religious Education/Youth Ministry program
• Willingness to pray, reflect on God's presence in his/her life
• Willingness to serve those in need

In all civilizations people have sensed a mysterious sacredness about the union of man and woman. There has always been a vague realization that the deep longing for oneness with "the other" is life-giving - and that it is a longing for oneness with the source of all life.

Jesus made marriage the sacrament of matrimony, giving matrimony a new dimension to the Christian vocation that begins in baptism.  In matrimony a husband and wife are called to love each other in a very practical way: by serving each other's most personal needs; by working seriously at communicating their personal thoughts and feelings to each other so their oneness is always alive and growing. This love is explicitly, beautifully sexual.

In matrimony a couple is also called to live their sacrament for others.  By their obvious closeness, a couple affects the lives of others with "something special" - the love of Christ in our midst.  They reveal Christ's love and make it contagious to their children and to all who come into contact with them.  A major purpose and natural outcome of matrimony is procreation or the beginning of new life - children.  But a couple's love also validates the life of Christ's Spirit to other people.  A couple does not live a life of love because they happen to be compatible. They do it consciously and deliberately because it is their vocation. 

Matrimony is much more that a private arrangement between two people.  It is a sacramental vocation in and for the Church.  It is a method through which Christ reveals and deepens the mystery of his oneness with us, his Body.
In the Catholic Church, a couple's sacramental union is exclusive (one man with one woman) and indissoluble (till death do us part).  These are concrete ways in which the mysterious oneness between husband and wife, Christ and Church, becomes reality.

Marriage Preparation
Please call the parish office to schedule your wedding liturgy.  As registered members of St. Patrick's Church you can request the priest to preside at your wedding liturgy.  If you have a family member or personnel friend that is qualified and you would like them to preside at your wedding, here at St. Patrick's, you can request permission for this by talking to the pastor.  At least four months before your anticipated marriage please contact the priest for your wedding liturgy to begin the marriage preparation process.  There will be a serious of interactive meetings that will take place during the preparation process.   At your first meeting with Father, you will receive a St. Patrick's Church - Wedding Guide to help plan your liturgy.

In serious physical illness you experience mortality.  If you are not seriously ill, but in poor health or aged, addicted to drugs or alcohol, experiencing mental difficulties you know this same experience.  Because these circumstances lead you to face God in the light of your own mortality, there is something especially sacramental about the condition you are in.  And so there is a formal sacrament for this sacramental situation: anointing of the sick.

Anointing does not hasten the act of death.  In this sacrament, God does invite you to connect with him in the light of your final meeting with him.  Through this sacrament, the entire Church asks God to lighten your sufferings, forgive your sins, and bring you to eternal salvation.

You need not be on the verge of dying to receive this sacrament.  This is clear from the fact that the anointing and the prayers that accompany it have as a purpose the restoration of health.  If you are in no immediate danger of death, but are sick through abuses, or aged, or mentally debilitated you can and should receive the sacrament.

Anointing of the sick helps you to share more fully in the cross of Christ.  By so sharing, you contribute to the spiritual good of the whole Church.  By the fact that you share more fully in the cross of Christ through anointing, you are being prepared for a fuller share in Christ's Resurrection.

Preparation for The Anointing of the Sick
If you or a member of your family would like to share in the grace of this healing sacrament, simply call the priest, and he would be happy to visit with the sick person and celebrate the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick as is appropriate.

The Church is the Body of Christ.  As such, the whole Church shares in the nature and tasks of Christ, our leader. This includes sharing in his priesthood.  But beyond this "common priesthood of the faithful", there is the special or "ministerial priesthood" of Christ that certain members of the Church are called to receive through the sacrament of Holy Orders. 

Each type of priesthood is a sharing in the priesthood of Christ. And both types are related to each other. But there is a basic difference between them.  In the Eucharistic sacrifice, the ordained priest acts "in the person of Christ" and offers the sacrifice to God in the name of all, and the people join with the priest in that offering.  The two roles of priest and people go together.  Priests share in Christ's ministry by preaching his gospel, doing all in their power to bring their people to Christian maturity.  They baptize, give absolution in the sacrament of penance, and act as the Church's witness in the sacraments of matrimony and anointing of the sick.  Priests celebrate the Eucharist, which is "the center of the assembly of the faithful over which the priest presides". All priests are united in the single goal of building up Christ's Body.  In addition to bishops and priests deacons also have a special sharing in the sacrament of holy orders.

Preparation For Holy Orders
If you discern in your faith life a calling to serve the Church as a priest or a deacon, please contact Father to further explore the call of God in your life. You may also contact the Vocations Director of the Grand Island Diocese, Rev. Jose Chavez at givocationsoffice@hotmail.com