There are three ingredients in this secret formula. The first two are simple ingredients that you can pull off your shelf anytime. What I mean by “pull off the shelf” is that they are already present and waiting – right there in your parish. It’s the third ingredient that seems to be a secret.

Ingredient #1 – the parish school teacher

Talk to the teacher. The truly critical ingredient is to have the teacher of the catechumen on board and intimately involved in the children’s RCIA process. In other words, it takes collaboration. It may require extra effort on your part, but go out of your way to talk to the teacher in person about the child catechumen in her or his classroom. Talk to the teacher about how you can work together and what is in the best interest of the child. Share your ideas for collaboration and listen to the teacher’s ideas. There is so much you can do if you gain the trust and support of the classroom teacher!

            In addition, you will also need the support of the principal. In order to work with a teacher, you have to start with the principal. So, even before you go talk with the teacher – talk to the principal.

Ingredient #2 – the classmates

Once you have the teacher on board, then involve the children. When a catechumen comes to us via the Catholic school, it’s essential that we involve her or his classmates as companions on the journey. Often, the classmates have already had an important role in evangelizing and bringing the child catechumen to faith.

Build upon the role and the relationship the school children already have with the catechumen. I suggest that with the teacher’s permission and collaboration, you give the classmates special responsibilities along the way. When they feel they have a responsible role in the faith journey of a classmate, they often take it very seriously and get very excited. You might ask classmates to do some of the following:

• Be a prayer partner.
• Be a pew partner during weekday mass (negotiate with the pastor, teacher, principal how dismissal works at school masses, see RCIA no. 75.3).
• Participate as a companion during the major rites or RCIA sessions that happen through the parish.
• Be a holy day helper. When a holy day or feast day arrives, asks a classmate to help the catechumen better understand the day. You’ll need to provide support and materials.
• Be a good friend.

The secret ingredient – the minor rites (RCIA, nos. 81-103)

The minor rites of the RCIA (blessings, anointing, exorcisms, and celebrations of the word) are so simple, yet so profound, that they can have a dramatic affect on the entire school and on children’s RCIA. I consider these rites the “secret ingredient” because many teachers and principals (and some RCIA coordinators!) are unfamiliar with these rites. They can easily be added to a school mass or a celebration of the word or incorporated into a religion class (see RCIA, nos. 92, 96, 100).  

            Picture this scenario. During a regular weekday school mass, after the homily, the catechumen is called forward. The presider invites all the students present to raise their hands in blessing over the catechumen. The blessing is prayed and the presider lays hands on the child’s head (RCIA, no. 97). Then, the child is dismissed with a catechist and a companion to break open the word (RCIA, no. 75.3). In this way, not just the catechumen’s classmates, but the entire school becomes a witness to the faith journey of the Catholic school catechumen.

            There are many ways that the minor rites can be incorporated into the parish school. You can celebrate a blessing or have a priest or deacon do an anointing at the end of religion class. However, it’s also important that the rites be done with great care, with great reverence and with adequate preparation; on the part of the coordinator, the presider and the children participating.

            If you have used the minor rites with children in the Catholic school setting, please tell us your story by commenting on this blog. We’d love to hear from you!

One of the things I love about the catechumenate is the sense of community that happens within the formation group. The team bonds more closely together, inquirers take that “leap of faith” together in the Rite of Acceptance, baptized candidates share their common love of Christ and how they find the fullest expression of that love in the Eucharist, and sponsors come to a level of faith they never thought possible.

It is an amazing and awesome process to be a part of. It humbles me and fascinates me still, after more than 30 years of doing this.

Cocoon-based conversion

But for the last few years, something has troubled me. It seems to me that the teams I’ve been a part of have been very good at creating a “faith cocoon.” We created a safe place where all of us in the process—no matter where we are on the faith journey—can share and grow more deeply in our faith. We experience conversion.

The problem is, the rest of the parish isn’t undergoing a similar ongoing conversion. Would that they were, but that’s not what is happening in most places. What often happens, then, is that neophytes and new Catholics are set free from that safe warm cocoon sometime after Easter. We shoo them off into the larger parish that is, by comparison, somewhat cold, large, and unfamiliar. Sometimes the new Catholics feel disoriented. Sometimes they want to stay in the catechumenate. Sometimes they drift away. Sometimes they find another congregation—often Evangelical or Pentecostal—because they feel a strong sense of welcome and vibrant faith there.

What has bothered me about the way I have led teams in the past is that I began to feel like the inquirers were joining the “RCIA” more than joining “St. Flocellus Parish” or the “Roman Catholic Church.” Of course what they are actually joining is Jesus Christ. The problem is that while they learn to find Christ in the small-group experience of the catechumenate, they have difficulty finding Christ in the parish church or the universal church.

What do you think?

I’d love to hear about your experiences. Do your neophytes and new Catholics immediately feel at home in the parish after their initiation or reception? Do they feel lost without the catechumenate group to support them? How have your sponsors and godparents been helpful with all of this?

In the past month, the Office of Communications of the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) published a document on social media guidelines. The publication of the guidelines coincided with a recent conversation among the team members of TeamRCIA—Diana, Nick, Rita, Miriam, and Rita—during which we discussed our desire to grow our Web site with more interaction, creative discussion, and peer support among all who visit our site. We want to become a virtual community of initiation ministers who minister to one another. What if TeamRCIA could become a dynamic, cross-cultural, international, community of support, encouragement, education, and resourcing for the work of faithfully implementing the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults!

Evangelization and catechesis

The guidelines document recognizes that the world of digital communication [has] almost limitless expressive capacity that can enhance the work of evangelization, catechesis, and apostolic action (note the echoes of Paragraph #75 here!) in ways that we have yet to imagine. The Church can use social media, the document reads, to encourage respect, dialogue, and honest relationships—in other words, ‘true friendship.’ We know that TeamRCIA is already a community of over 8,000 friends and colleagues with a wealth of knowledge and experience. Moving forward, we hope to both build and experience our community in new and exciting ways.

Recognizing that social media offer both opportunities and challenges, the guidelines document calls out three in particular: visibility, community, and accountability. Indeed, we at TeamRCIA are striving to become more visible as a consistent, user-friendly, online resource for those who strive to be faithful to the vision of the Rite and its effective implementation in a variety of settings. Our hope for community building through future webinars, real-time interaction, and online discussion and consultation inspires us to seek new offerings in the near future. Accountable to one another and to the call of Vatican II for the restoration of the Catechumenate, we will continue to grapple with the cultural, social, economic, and individual issues that call for our pastoral response.

Share your thoughts

Your suggestions for helping us achieve our goals, and your response to this post would be most welcome!

I’m leading a roundtable discussion at the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership meeting in Las Vegas next spring. My roundtable topic is:
 
 

Move your RCIA process from good to GREAT!

Come discover the core principles of a great RCIA process. Learn how to apply these core principles in ways that will renew your parish.

I thought we could begin the roundtable beforehand. I’d love to get your thoughts. I think identifying the core principle or principles of the catechumenate process is key to understanding how the RCIA can be fully integrated into parish life.

As I listen to catechumenate team members and pastoral leaders, I hear a lot of different opinions of what those core elements are.

What do you think? What do you identify as the core principles of the RCIA?

Thanks for your help with this topic.

In June, New York’s new Archbishop, Timothy Dolan, came to welcome the participants at a Forum Institute held at the Passionist Center in Riverdale. (I was there.) He said a lot of positive things about the RCIA. (Click here to read his comments.)

Archbishop Dolan is a church historian as well as a pastor. He commented that historians looking back on developments in the church after Vatican II would no doubt write many books about the RCIA. I was struck by this remark. It seems to me true and important.

The RCIA is not some passing fad, today’s enthusiasm to be forgotten tomorrow. It is having a profound influence on how we understand what it means to be church. The effects of what we do in this ministry will, in all probability, outlast us.

Keep it up, friends. We’re making history!

Seventeen years ago, I left the professional ministry field and started a career in publishing. Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by the intersection between business values and spiritual values. There can be a tendency among ministry folks to stereotype business people as being completely focused on money. Recent stories about unscrupulous bankers and greedy Wall Street CEOs seem to reinforce the stereotype. But my experience has been that the vast majority of business people are guided by deeply spiritual principles. They may not think of their principles as spiritual, but that’s how I see them.

For example, I stumbled across a blog post today by Barry J. Moltz (via Liz Strauss). I don’t know anything about Barry, but take a look at what he wrote in Letting Go of the Outcome. His suggestions, his business principles, are terrific reminders for RCIA teams.

RCIA is a process, not a program

“Process needs to trump outcome,” he writes. How many times have we all said, “RCIA is a process, not a program”? I hear that phrase so often that it has become jargon. What do we really mean by that? Barry has an insight for us:

“During these tough times, it is important to let go of a specific outcome.” He’s speaking of the tough economic times, of course. I think of tough spiritual times. Often, inquirers come to us in some state of spiritual distress. They are looking for peace or hope or faith. They don’t show up at a church all of a sudden because everything is going fine in their lives. What is important, what our spiritual principle is, is that we need to respond to the inquirer’s longing. We need to provide peace or hope or faith. We need to let go of the “specific outcome” of initiation.

“We need to be flexible,” Barry writes, “or we are bound to end up disappointed or disgruntled much of the time.” That has been soooo true for me! If an inquirer stops coming or a catechumen misses Mass or a neophyte falls away, I tend to take it as a personal failure. I can get really down on myself and spend a lot of negative energy wondering what I did wrong. When I am feeling that way, it’s a sure sign I’ve put programming ahead of process. So what should I be doing instead?

Due diligence

“Be diligent in formulating the best process that you can,” says Barry. He means business process, of course. Good customer service, accurate billing, quality manufacturing, stuff like that. But I think of “best process” as being diligent about my own prayer life; or listening, listening, and listening some more to the deep needs of the inquirers and catechumens; or constantly sniffing the wind for parishioners with just the right talents to help with the initiation process; or scrutinizing the fine details of every Sunday liturgy and initiation rite so the ritual can do its conversion thing.

If we pay attention to the process, the outcome will take care of itself. It’s a good principle to remember—in business or in ministry.

Here is a pop quiz. Catechumen A is traveling at 90 mph on a train from St. Louis to Chicago. Meanwhile, Catechumen B is traveling by bicycle from Seattle to Miami. Supposing each catechumen participates in the liturgy of the word every Sunday for the duration of their respective trips, which catechumen will reach conversion first?

Answer: Catechumen B will reach conversion first.

(Show your work: Catechumen B had cycled through the Sundays of the liturgical year, which is the primary encounter with the Mystery of Christ; Catechumen A had many fewer, if any, encounters with the Mystery of Christ.)

How many catechists do we need?

Okay, it’s a silly example, but it has a serious point. An abbreviated RCIA program does not provide the complete conversion process required of the catechumens. Of course, everyone agrees with that, don’t we? Most of us know that a complete catechumenate process—one that extends through the entire liturgical year—is going to provide a deeper experience of conversion for the catechumens. So what’s stopping us from providing catechumens with the fullest possible encounter with the Mystery of Christ?

There are several roadblocks, and the one I hear about most often is a lack of catechists. If a parish is currently barely able to offer weekly catechetical sessions in an abridged RCIA program, it is difficult to imagine expanding to a complete catechumenate process that spans 52 weeks of the year. In most of our parishes, we just don’t have enough catechists to provide an ongoing process, do we?

Well, in fact, we do. How many catechists does it take to provide an ongoing catechumenate? Count up the number of catechists you have on your team right now. That’s how many it takes. If that’s you and you alone, that’s how many it takes.

Let’s look at how you can expand your current, condensed RCIA program into a complete, ongoing catechumenate process with only the team members you have now.

Rescheduling conversion

For a small team, moving to a full and complete catechumenate process and providing weekly catechetical sessions for 52 weeks of the year seems overwhelming. So let’s start by agreeing that for this first year, we aren’t going to add any more catechetical sessions beyond what the parish is currently offering. However, we’re going to spread them out over all the seasons of the liturgical year.

Let’s imagine your Rite of Acceptance is scheduled for the first Sunday in October and you plan to meet weekly with the catechumens after that. So that’s four sessions in October. There are five Sundays in November in 2008, but you probably aren’t meeting Thanksgiving week. Nor Christmas week in December nor New Year’s Week in January. So that means, between October 5 and Ash Wednesday (which falls on February 25 in 2009), you might have 18 catechetical sessions with the catechumens.

If you changed that schedule from meeting once a week to meeting once a month, with weekly spiritual gatherings in Lent for the elect, you would still be meeting the same number of times and “covering” the same amount of material.

Cycling through the liturgical year

Just because you are not meeting for weekly sessions does not mean you will not be interacting with the catechumens, however. They will still be participating in the liturgy of the word every Sunday with their sponsors and the rest of the parish. And they will be attending parish events and meeting lots of parishioners—your primary team member.

Most importantly, like Catechumen B in our word problem, your catechumens will be cycling through the entire Mystery of Christ as it unfolds during the liturgical year.

Lack of catechists is just one of the obstacles to a full and complete catechumenate. What are some others you’ve encountered? If you’ve overcome an obstacle, how did you do it?

• Expanding yourself for a continuous RCIA process
• The team you need for a year-round RCIA
• Is this the year to go year-round?
• 100 ways to involve parishioners in the RCIA

Thanks to all of you who commented on the cover proposal for my forthcoming book on starting and sustaining an RCIA process in a parish. The marketing folks at Twenty-Third Publications were happy that so many of you responded positively to it. They also considered the suggestions you offered for improvement. In the end, however, they decided to go with their original concept. So what you see here is what it will look like when it’s finally out. And they tell me that will be in late August 2008. If you want to order a copy in advance, click here.

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.

Using “RCIA” and “RCIC” miscatechizes that there are two processes

Of course, I think most parishes know this. But they are looking for a way to distinguish between the adult group and the children’s group. I suppose they don’t want the adults to think they’ll have to do faith sharing with a group of seven-year-olds and vice versa. And that is part of the problem with having two separate names for the initiation rites. It catechizes that there are two separate processes. Having “two rites” or two names teaches that what the children are doing is somehow different than what the adults are doing. It isn’t.

Take a look at your copy of the RCIA and open to paragraph 1. It tells you right there who this rite is for and what it is supposed to do:

The rite of Christian initiation presented here is designed for adults who, after hearing the mystery of Christ proclaimed, consciously and freely seek the living God and enter the way of faith and conversion ….

Well, right there, someone might say, it says this is all about adults. No children mentioned. So can we please get back to the RCIC?

Unfortunately, I don’t see how. There is no RCIC to turn to. There is no text, no rite, no ritual that says, “The rite of Christian initiation presented here is designed for children….” There is only the RCIA.

But how can that be? Doesn’t the church care about the initiation of children?

Of course it does. When we think of children, however, we have to think of two kinds. There are infants. And then all the others. When does a child stop being an infant? For the purpose of sacraments, the church says anyone who has not reached the age of reason is an infant. So, approximately, anyone below first-communion-age is an infant. Anyone first-communion-age and above is…an adult.

Intimacy with Christ is the key

Okay, they’re not really adults yet. But they aren’t infants either. Children who are able to reasonably tell the difference between right and wrong, who can form an intimate relationship with Jesus, who can tell the difference between bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ—these are children who are “old enough” to participate in the adult rites of the church. It’s like when you get to sit at the big table. You might need a couple of phone books to boost you up, but you can use a knife and fork and probably not spill your milk.

So does the church have a “booster seat” for kid catechumens? Yes it does. Flip further back into the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults to paragraph 252.

This form of the rite of Christian initiation is intended for children, not baptized as infants, who have attained the use of reason and are of catechetical age.

This is a form of the RCIA, not a separate rite. You’ll see that a lot of adaptations are made to accommodate the little ones, but the underlying requirement is the same. They must convert their lives to Christ. If they are not mature enough to make that commitment, they are still “infants.”

One important thing to note about these adaptations is they are all optional. It is perfectly fine to use with children all the rites that you would use with adults. In fact, that’s the way I’ve always initiated children, because I don’t find the children’s adaptations to be very strong either ritually or catechetically.

However, whether you use the adaptations for children in the RCIA or you use the unmodified version of the rites, both are forms of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. There is no RCIC.

• How to prepare baptized, uncatechized Catholic children
• 100 children in RCIA—what would you do?
• Children and the scrutinies
• Do you know the three Rs of RCIA discernment?

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.