St Patrick’s candidates first to be confirmed

Eleven young men and three young ladies of St Patrick’s RC Church, Newtown made Church history on July 24 as they are the first young Catholics to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, since the country’s lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The parish priest Fr Herbert Charles CSSp assured Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon that they were indeed well prepared for the receipt of the sacrament. This is no idle boast, because, although the new norm of Zoom meetings came into being just around Easter time for Masses etc, this bunch of 14 have been privileged to partake of teachings via social media, because their chief Catechist Jessica Chin, moved in February 2019 to live in another country.

She saw to it that a Head Catechist Lyanna Alzola was appointed to take over the classes in her absence.

Requested by Lyanna, Chin agreed to have WhatsApp meetings every Thursday to ensure the content of the teachings continued to be sound, and the children engaged. This went on for the whole of 2019, and included a physical visit to Trinidad once monthly by Jessica.

So when COVID-19’s restrictions forced virtual teachings on the Catholic Church, guess which Confirmation Class was already rolling along?

We were lucky to be blessed with a group of extremely cooperative parents, who supported our every effort in their children’s spiritual upbringing. —A parishioner