​Parish Information

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Pastoral Plan

PASTORAL PLAN St. Jerome 2024-2025.pdf

Creating a Safe and Inclusive Community

A Catholic faith community is rooted in a set of common beliefs which are inspired by the life, mission and teaching of Jesus.  We grow together as disciplines of Jesus in a Catholic educational community by continuously articulating and celebrating those common beliefs.

As  a Catholic community, we are called to learn and to grow and to become more like Jesus in the way we see and treat others. Our Catholic faith plays an important role in helping us shape schools that are safe caring and inclusive.

Catholic school education provides us the opportunity to integrate virtues formation into all areas of our school life within the context of our faith.

We celebrate the virtues at St. Jerome through the Pals program, assemblies, recognizing students who have demonstrate these virtues and through various other activities initiatiated through our Wellness Ambassadors.

The monthly virtues are:

September:  Faith

October: Empathy

November: Conscience

December:  Hope (aligned to liturgical season of Advent)

January:  Self-Control

February:  Respect

March:  Kindness

April:  Love

May:  Acceptance

June:  Fairness

PRAYER TO ST. JEROME

Priest,Writer, Teacher

Feast Day: September 30

Patron Saint of Students and Librarians

Dear St. Jerome,

Our school has been honoured to bear your name, which has been made famous by your examples of prayers and good deeds.

You were a great student and studied the Bible well. Help us to grow in faith and understanding of God's word as we learn.

You were a just advisor and defended right from wrong. Help us to teach God's laws to others and to always defend the truth in our work and in our play.

You were a holy priest and teacher. You taught others about Jesus' peace and love. Help us as good Christians to share peace and love through our words, prayers and action, especially with the sad and poor.

Pray for our St. Jerome community that we may follow in the footsteps of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ-so that we may live a happy Christian life, which will one day lease us to our heavenly home.

Amen

About the Sacraments

Sacraments are celebrations of special moments of encounter between God and human beings. They are not, obviously, the only occasions when human beings consciously respond to God who is forever offering His love and friendship, but they are times when, the Catholic Church teaches, a person's relationship with God is assuredly initiated or deepened or strengthened or healed.

The Sacrament of Baptism

Baptism is the first of the sacraments of initiation into the Catholic church. It makes us adopted children of God, incorporates us into Christ, pardons all our sin, and forms us into God’s people. It confers a permanent relationship ("character") with Christ and his Church which lasts even should one cease to be an active member of the Catholic community. For this reason a validly baptized Christian is never re-baptized and has the right to a Christian funeral.

 Bishops, priests and deacons are the ordinary ministers of baptism, although anyone with the right intention may administer the sacrament in case of imminent death. The words for conferring baptism in the Latin Church are: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit".

Christian Initiation of Children

Baptism of infants takes place within the first few weeks after birth in the parish Church. It is highly desirable that baptisms take place during Sunday Eucharist when the parish community is assembled for worship. Otherwise, baptisms are scheduled by the parish staff, as required. It is important to recall that this sacrament is a church and not a family celebration, that the parents must have the intention of raising the child in the Catholic faith and that both parents and godparents are to be instructed on the serious responsibility they take upon themselves when they present their children for baptism.

The Sacrament of Confirmation

 "... 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. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1285). All baptized persons who have not been confirmed and only they are capable of being confirmed. It is required, if the person has the use of reason, that he/she be suitably instructed, properly disposed and able to renew his/her baptismal promises (canon 889).

 In the Archdiocese of Toronto, the Cardinal Archbishop has recently delegated authority to pastors to confirm their parishioners due to the large size of the diocese and to enable young people to be Confirmed on or close to the Feast of Pentecost.

Sponsors for this sacrament are ideally, the same persons who served as one’s baptismal sponsors. They are intended to be models of faith and so must be Confirmed themselves, be practising their faith, and be mature enough (usually sixteen years or older) to carry out the role of sponsor. A sponsor can be either male or female. Parents cannot be sponsors for their own children (canons 874 and 893).

Young people in the Archdiocese of Toronto are ordinarily Confirmed in their grade eight year. This applies as well to children of catechetical age (7 to 14 years) who were not baptized as infants but as young children.

The Sacrament of Eucharist

 "The holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1322). "The Eucharist is the ‘source and summit of the Christian life’. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324).

 If from the beginning Christians have celebrated the Eucharist and in a form whose substance has not changed despite the great diversity of times and liturgies, it is because we know ourselves to be bound by the command the Lord gave on the eve of his Passion: "Do this in remembrance of me."

We carry out this command of the Lord by celebrating the memorial of his sacrifice. In so doing, we offer to the Father what he has himself given us: the gifts of his creation, bread and wine which, by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the words of Christ, have become the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.

We must therefore consider the Eucharist as:

• thanksgiving and praise to the Father;the sacrificial memorial of Christand his Body
• the presence of Christ by the power of his word and of his Spirit.

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1356, 1357, 1358).

First Communion

The decision concerning an individual child’s readiness to receive First Communion rests in the first place with the child’s parents in consultation with the child’s parish priest and teacher(s). However, it is the duty of the parish priest to see to it that children who have not yet reached the use of reason, or whom he has judged to be insufficiently prepared, do not come to Holy Communion (canon 914).

Adequate preparation (in the Archdiocese of Toronto) is understood to be the successful completion of the initial preparation for this sacrament (either in a Catholic school or in a parish) and of the immediate preparation provided by the parish for all First Communion candidates (e.g. enrolment of all candidates for First Eucharist and, where these exist, additional classes). (Norms for Sacramental Preparation, Archdiocese of Toronto, 76)