Send Out Your Spirit Sponsor and Parent Guide - Paperback

by Michael Amodei (Author)

This concise guide helps parents and sponsors of Confirmation candidates understand the vital role they play in accompanying young people preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation. As part of the Send Out Your Spirit Confirmation preparation program, the Sponsor and Parent Guide equips parents and sponsors to actively walk with candidates--supporting them as they learn the core truths of the Catholic faith, reflect on their baptismal identity, and prepare to claim the faith as their own. It also explores how the responsibilities and expectations of sponsors have developed over time and how they may differ from what parents or sponsors remember from their own Confirmation experience.

Part I offers insight into the vocation of being a sponsor or supportive parent, with sections on these topics:

• Confirmation Sponsors Then and Now

• A Brief History of the Role of Sponsor

• Qualifications to Be a Confirmation Sponsor

• Expectations for the Sponsor Role

• Understanding Today's Adolescents

• Communication 101

• The Role of the Sponsor at the Liturgical Celebration of Confirmation

Part II of this guidebook contains suggestions about what sponsors and/or parents can do during their meetings with their candidate. These meetings might include reviewing or finishing assignments from the catechetical sessions at the parish, as well as new assignments for the candidate and sponsor or parent to work on together. This part of the guide also offers suggestions for prayer and service experiences for sponsors or parents and candidates to undertake together.

An appendix offers additional resources to support the candidate's intellectual formation and spiritual growth during this important time of preparation for Confirmation.

Author Biography

Michael Amodei is executive editor and curriculum development manager at Ave Maria Press, where he writes and edits Catholic high school religion textbooks. He is the author of Reaching for Heaven: 14 Spiritual Goals as You Grow Older, Send Out Your Spirit, Catholic Essentials, The Ave Guide to the Scriptural Rosary, and The Ave Guide to Eucharistic Adoration. Amodei has also acquired a number of spirituality books for Ave Maria Press, including A Teen's Game Plan for Life by Lou Holtz, Holy Goals for Body and Soul by Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, and Expect More! by Muffet McGraw.

Amodei earned his bachelor's degree in English from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, where he also earned a master's degree in religious education. He previously served as director of religious education and as a youth minister at St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica, California. He also taught math, religion, and gym and coached Catholic Youth Organization sports at St. Monica Elementary School.

He is leader of the Ave Maria Press Chapter of Catholic Relief Services, a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers, and a third degree in the Knights of Columbus. Amodei has been a youth sports coach for more than forty years and is the field supervisor for home football games at the University of Notre Dame.

Amodei lives with his family in South Bend, Indiana.