Our program utilizes the Blest Are We Faith in Action religious education program. Student books for the parish program help students learn their Catholic faith and deepen their Catholic identity. Using a unified curriculum enables our students to learn consistently and offers families familiar resources across the grades and year.

The Archdiocesan Guidelines for Catechesis for Grades 1 through 8 and Grades 7 and 8 ensure a uniform presentation of the faith for each grade level and outline the content of the catechesis each child is taught at every grade level. These Guidelines are found at NYFaithformation.org.

The six fundamental tasks which are entrusted to the Religious Education Program by the Catholic Church are:

1. to promote the knowledge of the faith
2. to give moral formation
3. to provide liturgical education
4. to teach
5. to pray
6. to educate for community life to initiate into the missionary dimension

GRADE 1
THEME: God is our Father who loves us, Jesus is the Son of God who tells us about our Father. The Holy Spirit helps us to be holy.
OBJECTIVE: To develop an awareness of God the Creator, who gives us life and grace and promises us eternal life through Jesus.

GRADE 2
THEME: Jesus nourishes us, and strengthens God’s life, grace, within us.
OBJECTIVE: To present Jesus as the model for Christian living, and to introduce the sacraments of Baptism, Penance and Eucharist.
SACRAMENTAL YEAR: First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion

GRADE 3
THEME: Jesus continues his life and work through his Church.
OBJECTIVE: To deepen the child’s understanding of the Church and to help the child experience the Church as Christian community.

GRADE 4
THEME: As God’s people, we are called to live as Jesus did, choosing a life of love, characterized by obedience to God and service to others.
OBJECTIVE: To help the children form their consciences according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, and to learn the basis of Christian morality as taught in the Old and New Testaments.

GRADE 5
THEME: Through the sacraments the Church celebrates Christ’s saving action in our lives.
OBJECTIVE: To help the child experience and understand the rites of the sacraments, and so become a more conscious and active participant in the Church’s sacramental life.

GRADE 6
THEME: God’s saving actions are found throughout history. The Bible, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, records God’s plan of salvation.
OBJECTIVE: To understand the Old Testament as the revelation of God in the history of a people, a revelation fulfilled in the New Testament.

GRADE 7
THEME: The mystery of Christ continues in the Church through the sacraments which are visible signs of the love and saving action of Jesus.
OBJECTIVES: To help the young adolescent understand, appreciate, and celebrate the continuing presence and saving action of Jesus in the Church. To lead the young adolescent to a full and active participation in the sacramental life of the Church.
SACRAMENTAL YEAR: Preparation for Confirmation

GRADE 8
THEME: Developing relationships with others and God is essential to becoming our true selves.
OBJECTIVES: To help the young adolescent understand the elements which are essential to developing positive relationships. To help the young adolescent understand that true community is built on honest, loving and respectful relationships.
SACRAMENTAL YEAR: Confirmation