I was just asked to review a book proposal that is meant to be a teaching resource for the catechumenate. The syllabus covers ecclesiology, Christology, the Trinity, each of the sacraments, and a bit of eschatology. I think those are all good things to know, but is that what the RCIA asks us to provide? Read the rest of this entry »

Sister Kate O’Neil, IHM, sent me an e-mail recently, telling me about her parish’s plan to begin catechizing the baptized candidates and the catechumens separately. As you know, in most parishes, that would take a whole bunch more person-power. Well, Sister Kate has what it takes. She told me she’s recruited seven new team members. Seven! I asked her to share her successful strategies with us. Here’s what she said: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the little-known (and oft-ignored) directives of the U.S. National Statutes for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is found in number 2, which states unambiguously that baptized Christians who are received into the full communion of the Catholic Church are NOT to be called converts. The term convert is to be strictly reserved for those who pass from non-belief to Christian belief.

What’s going on here?

This is one of the places where the American bishops, via the National Statutes, aim to practice the ecumenism the Second Vatican Council preached—an ecumenism still only gradually being incarnated in our day-to-day experience of the Church today, more than forty years after the Council.

The thinking goes like this: Anyone who is baptized is a member of Christ’s Body, the Church. Now to be sure, baptized individuals have an ongoing spiritual journey, and there are moments of spiritual awakening and promptings of the Spirit along the way. These experiences may lead an individual to enter the full communion of the Catholic Church. But they don’t make her a convert, because she already belongs to Christ.

All the baptized are called to ongoing conversion, but to be termed a convert is to say that you converted to Christ. In the immortal words of Ron Oakham, speaking on how the ritual text uses these words, “Conversion is not to Catholicism; it’s to Christ.”

Sadly, the word convert is still the only term in the English dictionary for members of other Christian communions who have become Catholic. The word is short. It’s handy. But we should save it for those whom it more aptly describes.

If you look up in the menu bar, you’ll see that TeamRCIA recently posted a glossary. And if you take a look in the glossary, you’ll see that one of the terms listed there is “RCIC.” I debated about whether to include it, because there is no such thing. Still, a lot of people use the term, so practicality won out over precision.

If your parish has an “RCIC,” I mean no offense. And you probably have a wonderful process for children that converts them to deep faith in Christ. But one thing no parish has is a Rite of Christian Initiation of Children. Because there is no such rite. Read the rest of this entry »

What do you do when an inquirer wants to get to the “nitty-gritty” about the Catholic Church and “God” and does not really want to faith share or hear other’s stories about God in their life?

In the precatechumenate, the inquirer sets the agenda. So I’d answer whatever questions he had, nitty, gritty, and otherwise. If he wants to get baptized, he will eventually need to learn to grow in and share his faith. It is a prerequisite for celebrating the Rite of Acceptance. See paragraph 42. He can remain in the precatechumenate for a long as he needs to, asking whatever questions he needs to. However, until he shows the beginnings of a spiritual life, he cannot be a candidate for the Rite of Acceptance.

Team member Rita Ferrone recently won a 2008 Catholic Press Association Book Award for Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Rediscovering Vatican II) (Paulist Press). The judges called the book:

An interesting and highly accessible guide to the central document in liturgical reform, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Liturgy explores the development, key principles and implementation of the CSL, and raises questions related to those principles needing further reflection in today’s church. This book would be helpful for anyone interested in Catholic liturgy, and especially valuable for parish ministers.

To read my review of the book, click here.

Congratulations Rita!

One of the reasons often given for doing only a partial RCIA process is a lack of volunteers. So let’s look closely at how you can redeploy your current volunteers more efficiently. I’m going to imagine you have a team of three people, plus sponsors or godparents as needed. You may have fewer than that, but these principles will still work. Certainly if you have more than that, they will work.

Limit the inquiry process to true seekers

Let’s look at inquiry. What is the inquiry period in the first place? Flip open your RCIA text to paragraph 36 and underline this sentence:

It is a time of evangelization…. Thus those who are not yet Christians, their hearts opened by the Holy Spirit, may believe and be freely converted to the Lord.

So inquiry is not a place for Christians. Usually. It is sometimes the case that a person baptized as a child was never raised in the faith and has never “freely converted to the Lord.” That Christian could be in inquiry. But the faithful Protestants who are married to Catholics, who believe in Jesus and go to church, do not belong in inquiry. Where do they belong? That’s a subject for another post, but the short answer is, if they believe in Jesus and they are going to church, they are not our first concern.

To see what I mean, flip open another book, if you have it: the General Directory for Catechesis. (You can also read it online.) Turn to paragraph 46: Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently, Pope Benedict XVI was looking for ways to celebrate Saint Paul’s 2,000th birthday. After the Vatican Fire Marshal nixed the idea of a giant cake with 2,000 candles (the pope may be infallible, but not inflammable), the pontiff decided to declare this “The Pauline Year.” The festivities begin on June 29, 2008 and run through June 29, 2009. What festivities, you ask? Well, the Vatican is just a little tight-lipped about that. Never fear. TeamRCIA is stepping into the breach with nine ways to celebrate. (All of these suggestions have been safety-rated for catechumens.)

• Focus on the Easter Vigil epistle for the year (Romans 6:3-11). Have the catechumens memorize it. Make it the reading for your lector training. Have the lectors memorize it too. Ask the school children and the kids in the catechetical program to write an essay or poem or song about it.
• Preach on the second reading (when it is from Paul) more often this year. Focus the breaking open of the word sessions on the second reading more often. Write a weekly reflection question for the parish bulletin based on the second reading.
• Sing the Pauline canticles more often. Ask choir members, cantors, and the worshiping assembly to memorize one or two of them.
• Do you have stained glass windows in your parish? Or does a nearby parish? Is one of the images of Saint Paul? Take a field trip with the catechumens (and anyone else who wants to join in), and do a “breaking open of the glass” with them. (Don’t forget “breaking” is a metaphor!)
• Make pilgrimages to the parishes in your diocese named after Paul. You might want to call ahead. What’s a pilgrimage without some coffee and cookies waiting for you?
• Since the Feast of the Conversion of Paul is not only a Sunday this year but is also the event around which the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is planned every year, make a greater effort at building ecumenical relationships this year.
• Paul was all about conversion-his own and others’. Find a place on your parish Web site, Facebook group, or during coffee and doughnuts to share how you got knocked off your horse. (Which, as every good catechist knows, didn’t actually happen to Saint Paul. But it is a good image of conversion.)
• Throw a Paul party. Everybody named Paul, Pauline, or Pablo gets to be the guests of honor. However, they all have to tell the story of how they got their name.
• Create a parish book where people can write out their favorite verse from one of Saint Paul’s letters. In fact, let’s do that here. Click on the comments link and tell us the line from Paul that inspires you. Or share your own ideas for celebrating The Pauline Year.

You know who they are. They’re the ones who keep coming back week after week long after the Easter Vigil and Pentecost are over. They light up anytime someone mentions the RCIA or the catechumenate or becoming Catholic. They want to be sponsors even before they’ve gotten the Chrism smell off their pillow case.

They’re the neophyte evangelist, those newly-initiated who are not only living breathing proof of the resurrection but also walking billboards for the RCIA. They are your greatest fans and your number one supporters.

The RCIA process is not a one-way street that shapes only the catechumen into a disciple. It’s a mutual formation in the life of Christ that changes both the catechumen and the parish. That mutual relationship is evident when a neophyte feels called to share his experience of transformation with others. Essentially, this neophyte is doing faith-sharing, exactly what the catechumenate taught him to do and what all the baptized are called to do.

Some parishes invite neophytes to share their experience with the rest of the parish some time after their initiation. It’s best to give a neophyte time to process for himself or with a small group what he experienced and what it meant (mystagogy) before you ask him to speak to the assembly at a Sunday Mass about his experience. They might speak during the announcements or before Mass begins or even at coffee and donuts after Mass.

But don’t limit yourself to just the Sunday gathering as the venue for evangelization. Neophytes who are more comfortable writing their thoughts can provide a brief reflection for the bulletin or your parish Web site. Or better yet, record their reflection and put it on your parish Web site or blog just like Saint John the Evangelist Parish in Davison, Michigan, did with their neophytes.

Click the audio button above to listen to one of their neophytes, Michael McCarty, talk about his initiation experience.

(Thanks to Michael McCarty and Elaine Ouelette, Director of RCIA and Family Faith Formation for their permission to include this testimony on TeamRCIA.com. Go to Saint John the Evangelist’s RCIA Web site to hear more testimonies.)

Imagine an entire CD filled with reflections like Michael’s from your neophytes, sponsors, team members, and parishioners who witnessed the transformation taking place in your catechumens and in themselves!

Do you have other ways you invite your neophytes to share their experience with the community? Have you included reflections from your neophytes on your Web site? Click the comment link below and share your ideas.

Whenever I serve on a Beginnings and Beyond institute, we always ask how many of the teams present are using a year-round process for the catechumenate in their parishes. Typically, about a fourth to a third of the hands go up. Granted, a B&B probably has a more than average share of beginners present, but that still seems like an awfully low percentage to me.

Now in all the time I’ve been working in RCIA ministry, I’ve never met anyone who thought a nine-month program was a good idea. Nine or ten months are all they can handle. Almost everyone would, they tell me, do a year-round process if….

Fill in the blank.

Usually, the “blank” is more team members. “If we had more team members, we could do year-round.”

So how many team members does it take to do a year-round RCIA process?
Read the rest of this entry »