Congratulations! Becoming engaged to be married is a big step. All of us who work with you during the marriage preparation process are eager to help you during the coming months. We know that planning a wedding can be a very hectic time for you. It is also a time that you will learn a great deal about one another. You may be wondering where to begin.

Couples wishing to plan their weddings should contact the Church Office at 727.726.8477 and register for a Marriage Information Gathering.  Attending this session will begin your six months of preparation time. All questions will be addressed at this session.  Until then, please refer to the Espiritu Santo Guidelines for Wedding Preparation. We’re happy and eager to help you experience another step in your journey of faith through the sacrament of Marriage.

The church needs a minimum of 6 months for the preparation to receive the sacrament of Matrimony. This minimal period of time as set forth by the policie of the Diocese of St. Petersburg is simply stating that adequate preparation for the sacrament is essential. Certain elements such as assessment, discernment, enrichment, liturgical planning, and attending the initial Marriage Information Gathering need time -- at least 6 months.

For more information please contact Tim Bergevin at the Church Office, 727.726.8477 x326.

Dependent on our parishioners’ generous donation of money and non-perishable food, Vincentians are able to provide the poor of our area with pantry items as well as financial aid for rent, utilities and other necessities. The parish St. Vincent de Paul hours are 9:00 am to 10:00 am, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the St. John Bosco Center. Food donations are always needed and can be left in the box in the narthex of the church or in the St. John Bosco Center. This is an International Society of Charity offering person-to-person service to the poor and needy, regardless of race, color or creed.

St. Vincent de Paul volunteers are called Vincentians. If you would like to share some of your talent and time with which you have been blessed, please consider ministry in this society.

Our mission is to bring Holy Communion to those who cannot join us at Mass. We extend our love, concern and support for our fellow faith community members who are sick and homebound in their homes, nursing homes or assisted living facilities.

Intercessions committee meets weekly so that writers can prepare intercessions for upcoming weekend Masses, Holy Days, Civic Holidays, and other special celebrations to include current needs.

Dear Sponsor,

During the preparation time between November and June, we encourage you to spend time with your candidate. While there should be some formal time to review and reflect on the preparation the candidate is doing through our program, we also recommend you spend some time informally with your candidate.

Going to get ice cream or doing a recreational activity together can provide a space for the candidate to be very honest and candid with you. Times such as these can be extremely fruitful, even if you do not talk with your candidate about anything "religious". It is important for the candidate to feel loved and supported by your presence and attention to them.

Please review the red Handbook with your candidate. Make sure that they understand what is being asked of them. We ask that you support them in their journey by offering to volunteer with them. Doing service with your candidate is an opportunity for a shared experience. We hope this will be enjoyable and spiritually satisfying.

Below are three different topics that we would like you to speak with your candidate about at three different times. Please reflect during one session on the Service Actions they did, and one session on the Spiritual Actions in which they engaged. At another time, share about the candidate's relationship with Jesus and His Church.

Here are some conversation starters:

Meeting I-SERVICE ACTIONS

• Have you started your service?

• How did the service you did make you feel?

•  Why do you think that is the case?

• Did you have to make any sacrifices to do this service?

• What did you learn about yourself, and others, while participating in this Christian service?

• Do you feel that your relationship to the community you served has changed in any way?

Meeting II- SPIRITUAL ACTIONS

• Which prayer/event actions did you try?

• Why did you pick those?

• What did you experience?

• Would you do any of the spiritual actions again?

• How did you feel before, during, and after the spiritual actions you chose?

• Why do you think other people choose to make spiritual and service actions part of their daily lives?

Meeting III- FURTHER CONVERSATION REFLECTIONS

• Do you feel like you know Jesus?

• When do you feel close to Him?

• What makes you feel far away from Him?

• Do you want to know Jesus more?

• Have you ever told Him that?

• How do you think that the Church can help you in your life?

• Is there anyone who inspires you to grow in your faith life?

• Is there anything that is hard for you to believe about the Catholic-Christian faith?

• Where do you think you can go to find help understanding or believing what you struggle with? Is there a person who can help?

• Have you ever told Jesus about your struggles to believe or understand something in the Church or the Bible?

• What does the Bible and Catechism say about the questions you have or the things we have been discussing?

Various Adult Faith Formation programs are offered on Monday evenings to coincide with our Monday evening Religious Education program. We meet in the Parish Center from 6:15 pm to 7:30 pm. In the past we have focused on Bible studies utilizing “The Great Adventure Foundational Study Series” which is a interactive study using a workbook, teaching using DVD, and faith sharing.   We have also offered a program on “Catholicism 101” developed by Jeff Cavins on Sunday mornings while our Parish Center was being renovated. The intention is to offer more opportunities in the future to connect faith to life and life to faith.

Familia is a Catholic program committed to strengthening all families. It is Familia's mission to strengthen families by helping men and women live their vocation to marriage and parenthood in all its fullness.  The family is the bedrock of our society. This is where God has made known his presence in a most unique and unrepeatable way. Familia can help equip you with practical tools that will enable you to become father or mother your family needs.  As part of a small Familia team in your parish or neighborhood, you will discover and discuss the richness found in marriage. Small groups use a workbook to help participants prepare and guide the discussions. Each question clearly references back to a portion of the reading where the principle can be discovered and read together during the team meeting. Familia programs address topics that are relevant for today's  family. You will develop understanding and strategies which have the potential to positively impact your marriage, your children, and even your life at work.

You love your family. They are worth this investment of your time. Familia can help you reach the great heights God has planned for you. For more information about Familia, please contact Tim Bergevin in the church office, 727.726.8477 x326 or Anne Harper.

Outreach Mission Ministry fosters prayer support, fundraising and cultural exchange between Espiritu Santo Parish and our Central American Missions. We are currently helping to support missions through our weekend “Fiesta Latina” and our annual visit to the Farm Of The Child in Trujillo, Honduras. We meet for an hour each month. Those going on the mission trips are gone for seven days.  Contact Tim Dailey.

Liturgical Environment Committee ministers maintain and create the physical environment surrounding the Mass and liturgical events to enhance the worship experience.

• Volunteer Position: Many opportunities with various ministry teams.
• Required of volunteer: Must be a Registered parishioner and have a desire to serve the Lord and our faith community.
• Ministry Teams: Alcove candles, chapel care, holy water fonts, linens, misallettes, peew racks, plant care and vessel cleaning..
• Experience necessary: No
• Training required: No
• Time commitment: All ministers are required to attend one meeting a year and an annual workshop. Time required will vary for each ministry.
• Contact: Terry Ness, at the Church Office, at 727.726.8477 x332

This is a time for you to develop your relationship with the Lord. You do this mainly through prayer. The sacraments can be prayer and engaging in the life of the Church also leads us into prayer. Hearing about others' experiences of God can help us in our own relationship with him. Please take the time to look over the different ways to pray and choose 10 different types of prayer to try over the next 7 months. During the times you meet with your sponsor, keep them updated on the different ways you are praying. You may share as much as you want to about how your relationship is going with the Lord. At the least you will need to tell them which ways you are praying. Please keep track of this record it on your form as well. You should bring this form to your interview and then submit the completed one at the final Confirmation session in May.

Personal Prayer

• Adoration- Go spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Gaze upon the Eucharist and praise Him.
• Sit in silence in a chapel or in your own prayer space and be open to receiving anything God has for you.
• Setting time aside to tell God what is on your heart and mind. Then listening to what He has to say to you.
• Attend a prayer service
• Praying the Rosary and meditating on the mysteries
• Pray through a scripture passage
• Go on a walk by yourself or in silence and thank God for the beauty of His creation.
• Listen to a Christian song and find some lyrics that speak to you. Use them to guide your prayer. Think about what God might be saying to you through them.
• Journal your thoughts to the Lord. Write down anything that comes to mind.
• Spiritual reading
• Read the scriptures for the day. Does anything apply to your life? How does the person writing the psalm feel? Have you ever felt that way before?
• Pray a prayer you find on a prayer card or in a religious book. Think about what the prayer means as you read it. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you be aware of the grace you will receive by praying it. Read the prayer out loud as your own words.

Sacrament

• Make an examination of conscious and then go to Reconciliation with a priest. Reflect on how you feel afterward. Do you feel refreshed, healed, lighter, joyful?
• Attend Mass and receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Make a journal entry (to turn in) that talks about something you learned or will help you in your spiritual life. Mention a song you like or a reading that spoke to your heart.
• Attend a Baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Wedding, Ordination, Anointing of the Sick, or Last Rites. Pray for the person(s) receiving the sacrament. Ask Jesus to prepare your heart to receive the Holy Spirit in a new way at Confirmation.
• Events in the Life of the Church
• Stations of the Cross- Put yourself in the role of someone who was there when Christ suffered for us. How would they have felt?
• Plan a Prayer Service with your class, for another class or by yourself, for your family.
• Go to Youth Group
• Attend the Mission speaker this year
• Go to any of the Holy Week liturgies or services. Have a conversation with your sponsor about what you saw and experienced.
• Attend a speaker or presentation on a faith-related topic.

Serving As the Body of Christ

This year you will be challenged to look through the 7 principles of Catholic Social Teaching and choose one or more to uphold through a combination of service actions.

Since your participation in service to and with the body of Christ stems from your Baptism, you will be asked to do one service hour for every year of your life. *For example if you are 13, you should do a minimum of 13 service hours. Therefore, your service actions should add up to at least 13 hours.

More important than the hours is that the candidate do a variety of deeds with a loving and willing attitude.

Christian service should reach out beyond the "family circle" to the community unless they have chosen to do something as an extension of CST principle #2. Hopefully, the candidate is already contributing to the development and responsibility within the family. Parents, you can plan an important supporting role by helping the candidate find opportunities for action service hours.

No payment or reward should be received from these service action hours, but they are to be done merely for the good that is accomplished in helping those in need.

*As you look through these principles of Catholic Social Tradition, pay attention to your thoughts and feelings about the different types of involvement mentioned. If one excites you more than some of the others, we encourage you to learn more about it and consider doing service actions in that area. You might have a natural passion for this type of work. God created you with specific interests and gifts. He made you in a special way so that you can serve His people in a way that is unique. Pay attention to this and allow it to help you learn about yourself and the way God created you!

1.Dignity of all human life

Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, each person's life and dignity must be respected, whether that person is an innocent unborn child in a mother's womb, whether that person worked in the World Trade Center or a market in Baghdad, or even whether that person is a convicted criminal on death row. We believe that every human life is sacred from conception to natural death, that people are more important than things, and that the measure of every institution is whether it protects and respects the life and dignity of the human person. —USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, p. 13

Actions:

a.Attend the Pro-Life March

b.Participate in 40 days for life by praying outside one of the clinics with the group from our parish

c.Visit some folks in a nursing home

d.Participate in a program like Best Buddies

2.The call to family, community, and participation

The human person is not only sacred, but social. The God-given institutions of marriage— a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman—and family are central and serve as the foundations for social life. Marriage and family should be supported and strengthened, not undermined. Every person has a right to participate in social, economic, and political life and a corresponding duty to work for the advancement of the common good and the well-being of all, especially the poor and weak. —USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, p. 13


Actions:

a.Babysit without charge for a married couple so they can have a date night

b.Organize a family night

c.Offer to make dinner or do a project to help your family

d.Assist in the Religious Education Program

e.Help with First Holy Communion Sessions

f.Prepare a meal or a dessert for a family whose loved one is sick or has died

g.Make cards for people in hospice, in jail, in a nursing home, or homebound from our parish

h.Accompany a Eucharistic Minister as they visit the sick and homebound

i.Coach or assist with young children's sports activities

3.Solidarity

We are one human family. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, wherever they may be. Pope John Paul II insists, "We are all really responsible for all." Loving our neighbor has global dimensions in a shrinking world. At the core of the virtue of solidarity is the pursuit of justice and peace. Pope Paul VI taught that "if you want peace, work for justice." The Gospel calls us to be "peacemakers." Our love for all our sisters and brothers demands that we be "sentinels of peace" in a world wounded by violence and conflict. —USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, p. 15


Actions

a.Go to Pinellas HOPE to serve meals and eat with the guests. Get to know their names and stories.

b.Participate in an event that raises awareness and support for an illness (Relay for Life, MS walks, etc.)

c.Visit some guests in a nursing home. Offer to read them a book or play a game with them.

d.Organize for your choir or dance group to perform at a nursing home during the holiday season

e.Prepare entertainment or holiday parties for nursing homes or child care centers

4.Dignity of Work

The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God's act of creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers, owners, and others must be respected—the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to organize and choose to join a union, to economic initiative, and to ownership and private property. These rights must be exercised in ways that advance the common good. —USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, p. 15

Actions:

a.Collect long sleeve shirts to donate on Farmworker Sunday (Nov. 6)

b.Write a letter to a company owner or CEO that is mistreating their employees or not offering fair wages.

c.Support Fair Trade products by organizing a campaign to raise awareness for the importance of supporting Fair Trade instead of Free Trade.

5.Rights and Responsibilities

Every person has a fundamental right to life— the right that makes all other rights possible. Each person also has a right to the conditions for living a decent life—faith and family life, food and shelter, education and employment, health care and housing. We also have a duty to secure and respect these rights not only for ourselves, but for others, and to fulfill our responsibilities to our families, to each other, and to the larger society. —USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, p. 14

Actions:

a.Donate 10 clothing items you don't wear anymore to Good Will

b.Collect toys for children in need

c.Help with the parish Giving Tree

d.Write letters to government officials about justice issues

6.Option for the poor and vulnerable

Scripture teaches that God has a special concern for the poor and vulnerable. The Church calls on all of us to embrace this preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, to embody it in our lives, and to work to have it shape public policies and priorities. A fundamental measure of our society is how we care for and stand with the poor and vulnerable. —USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, p. 15

a.Collect food for St. Vincent DePaul

b.Collect, clean, and repair clothing and donate it to St. Vincent DePaul

c.Work at a food bank

7.Caring for God's Creation

The world that God created has been entrusted to us. Our use of it must be directed by God's plan for creation, not simply for our own benefit. Our stewardship of the Earth is a form of participation in God's act of creating and sustaining the world. In our use of creation, we must be guided by a concern for generations to come. We show our respect for the Creator by our care for creation. —USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, p. 15

a.Organize or help with a recycling project

b.Start a compost pile in your schoolyard or backyard. Ask students, teachers, or neighbors to contribute.

c.Plant a garden and take flowers, fruit, or vegetables to a lonely neighbor or someone in a nursing home.

d.Carpool to save gas and utilize less carbon fuels.

*Carpooling 5 times will ear you one hour.