High School Confirmation
Welcome!
Our Lady of Guadalupe is happy to accept teens for our High School Confirmation program!
We offer a two-year program for high school students who have received their Sacraments of Baptism and First Communion. Confirmation Year 1, teens attend and maintain 80% attendance at Life Teen and complete 15 service hours. In Confirmation Year 2 (CHOSEN Program), teens again maintain 80% attendance, complete 15 service hours and attend a weekend long retreat.
We are preparing for our next Confirmation year. Accepting registration until September 17, 2023.
Confirmation Classes
1. Mandatory Meeting
Parent & teen has to attend one of the two informational meetings offered.
Sunday July 9 , 2023 1:30 pm
Tuesday July 11, 2023 6:30 pm
2. Enrollment
Once your teen completed one year in Life Teen program (with the required attendance) and finished his/her service hours. He/she can register on the Confirmation Program. If your teen is enrolled in Catholic School, that count as the first year of formation . A copy of the teen’s baptismal and first communion certificates is required for enrollment (notations are acceptable). If you do not have a copy on hand, we recommend that you call the parish of your teen’s baptism (even if that is OLG) and request a copy as soon as possible.
The Confirmation classes will take place on most Sundays from 12:30 pm- 2:30 pm during the school year.
3. How do I make up a missed class?
If a candidate misses class, they should watch the missed lesson and email a photo of the book section “Watch it videos” to Jen at teenConfirmation@olghelotes.org no later than one week after the missed class. Please see the calendar links above to see which chapter lesson need to be done. If more than four classes are missed, the candidate will be removed from the Confirmation program.
4. How to access Chosen videos
OLG gets charged every time an account is created with this link so please only create one account per family. Parents, you are welcome to check out the videos we use but please use your teen’s account to do so. https://ascensionpress.thinkific.com/enroll/2002264?th__ug=00de46cc&th__c=angelaquintanillachosencv2sp2023
Once an account has been created, you will be able to view all study videos for the Chosen program through a platform called Thinktific. After creating a password you will need to click “complete your purchase” but you will not be charged, the amount due will be zero. If you ever have issues accessing the videos, please contact Ascension support at: support@ascensionpress.com
5. Prerequisites for Confirmation Sponsors
- Must be at least 16 years old
- Must be a fully initiated Catholic (received the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist)
- Must participate regularly in the Eucharist
- Must not be living in marriages not recognized by the Church
- Must not be the parent of the candidate or person dating/married to candidate
- Should be able to help in the formation process through communication and meetings, and should be able to attend various events throughout the year. For this reason, we strongly recommend you pick someone local to be the sponsor.
If you need help finding a good sponsor, the Confirmation Director may be able to help find one from the parish community.
6. Saint Paper
Each candidate must select a Confirmation name based on a saint who inspires them, or is someone they would like to emulate. Confirmation students MUST complete a 2 page paper (typed, double spaced, Arial font type, font size 11-point with 1 – inch margins) on the life of the saint they have chosen that includes an explanation as to why they have chosen that saint. The paper it’s not a biography of the life of your saint. Describe from your heart how you identify with your saint. A great format to follow could be to pick 3-5 virtues of your saint that you would like to exemplify in your own life and write a paragraph per virtue to further explain how and why you will live that in your life as a Confirmed Catholic. Your saint paper MUST BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS and can be turned in via email to teenconfirmation@olghelotes.org at any time before or on the FINAL DUE DATE OF January7th, 2024.
7. Community Service Requirements
All Confirmation students are required to perform 15 hours of service at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Service opportunities will be posted on the Flocknotes (sent via email every Wednesday). To track the services hours of each teen, we use the app X2vol, see instructions on how to create user and log hours below. Service hours are due Apr 7, 2024.
8. Confirmation Retreat
The Confirmation Retreat is an opportunity for teens to dive deeper into the meaning behind their confirmation. This retreat is mandatory. If your teen can’t attend to retreat at OLG- Helotes, It is his/her responsibility to attend a weekend Confirmation retreat (not a day retreat) at a different parish.
Dates for Confirmation retreat TBD
9. Confirmation Mass
Our Confirmation Mass date(s) and time(s) are selected by the Office of the Archbishop and based on the Archbishop’s calendar.
Confirmation Masses 2024 -TBD
If you need to request a switch, please send it before March 9, 2024.
Confirmation masses start at 6 pm but candidates arrive at 6:10pm and sponsors have to arrive by 5:30 pm.
Rehearsal with sponsor TBD in the Church and Hall. If a sponsor is unable to attend rehearsal, a parent may attend in their place.
Dress Code for Confirmation Mass
Both Candidates and Sponsors MUST dress appropriately and respectfully for the Confirmation Mass. Guidelines for the dress code are as follow:
MEN – Dress shirt and tie (if possible, a suit and red tie)
- Dress pants
- Dress shoes
- NO JEANS
- NO TENNIS SHOES
WOMEN – Nice dress or skirt and blouse
- If not wearing a dress, pants MUST be dressy
- Shoulders MUST be covered (wear a sweater, jacket or shawl if necessary), No Cleavage, back covered, no spaghetti straps, no midriff.
- Dresses and skirts must not be too tight and NO SHORTER THAN 2 INCHES ABOVE THE KNEE
- NO JEANS
- NO TENNIS SHOES
X2Vol App – Service Hours Tracking
First time Registration in X2Vol
- Must be done using a web browser (chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, etc.). Go to webpage www.x2vol.com
- Select “Join”
- Click on “My School instructed me to complete my registration – Complete Registration”
- Search the church using the zip code 78023.
- Fill out your Last name and you email. Click on “Search”
- Fill out the rest of your information. In “Student Id” write your email. Click “Proceed”
- Create password, Select the group that you belong to (Confirmation 2223-2024).
- At the bottom of the page: Check out the first 2 options “I understand..”, and check out “I am 13 yr. old”
- Click on “Complete Registration”.
Log Service Hours
- Login into your account
- Go to “Opportunities & Projects” tab and click on “My Activity Log”
- On the section “Personal Project“, click “Create New” button
- Fill out info: Project name, description, attach picture, and Activity Verification Contact (Name of the PERSON IN CHARGE OF THE ACTIVITY, email and phone -if you don’t have the phone, just type in zeros, but the email is a must)
- Claim Hours Section: fill out date, how many hours and your reflection about the activity you performed.
- Choose the “Goal”: 2023-2024 Service Hours or “Missing hours Year 1 (2022-23)” if you did not finish/reported hours in your first year.
- Click the “Oath” and then “Submit”
- If the hours were accepted, you will see a “Claim Successfully Submitted” window. The information has been sent for approval.
For other questions on x2vol and videos, please visit :
x2Vol Help page
Questions?
Contact Angela Quintanilla, aquintanilla@olghelotes.org | (210) 695-8791, ext. 116