I’m writing a guidebook for catechumens and candidates. My hope is to give them some ideas about how to look at the world through Catholic eyes. The book is not intended to be a “catechism” that gives them an outline of the faith. I figure you’re already doing that in your catechetical sessions with them. It’s more of an attempt to describe Catholic culture and spirituality to them.

How you can help

If you’d be willing, I’d like to get your help with two things.

• First, I’m looking for stories about catechumens. If you have a story about a catechumen you’d like to share, please post it in the comments or e-mail it to me at nick@teamrcia.com.
• And I’d like know what you think of the first draft of my book outline. What looks good to you? What is missing? What suggestions would you make?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Scarcity and abundance
3. Consolation
4. Religious imagination
5. Catholic eyes
6. Seeing God everywhere
7. Word
8. Community
9. Worship
10. Service
11. What’s expected of you?
12. Preparing for baptism
13. Baptized Candidates
14. Reflecting on your baptism
15. Appendices

• Postures for prayer
• Catholic customs
• Annulments

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I was in a parish outside my diocese recently, and I read a bulletin announcement similar to one that appears in thousands of parishes every Sunday. The announcement invited all those who had never been baptized, or who had been baptized in another tradition, or who had been baptized Catholic but not received the sacraments of confirmation and Eucharist, to “join the RCIA.”

The RCIA is a rite

Asking someone to join the RCIA is a little like asking someone to join the sacrament of penance or the sacrament of anointing. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is a rite. A sacrament. It isn’t a group or a program or even a process that can be “joined.” I understand the good intentions behind such announcements, and that’s exactly why they bother me. I fear that all the good energy behind such messages is missing the key audience they are intended for.

So who are these announcements intended for? Primarily, the people in need of initiation sacraments are unbaptized adults who have had an initial experience of God. For the most part, these people are not in our parishes on Sunday. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t invite them to come, but the parish bulletin is probably not the best medium.

Who sees RCIA announcements?

The next audience is baptized Protestants. In most parishes, these folks make up the vast majority of the participants in our catechumenate groups. On any given Sunday, there are probably a good number of baptized Protestants in Catholic pews. Why is that? Usually because they are married to a Catholic and a parent to one or more little Catholics. The bulletin can be an appropriate way to invite these folks into full communion, but the process for most of them is not the RCIA. They do not lack initiation and many of them do not lack catechesis. They lack full communion. The proper rite for them is Reception of Baptized Christians into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church, not the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

This book is very helpful in understanding the differences between the baptized and the unbaptized.

When Other Christians Become Catholic
Paul Turner
Price: $23.95

Click here for details

There are exceptions. Some baptized Protestants have never been catechized, and a catechumenate-style process is exactly what they need. However, like the unbaptized, these folks are usually not in the pews on Sunday. And if they are, they have little understanding of terms like “RCIA,” “sacrament,” “confirmation,” and “Eucharist.”

The third audience is baptized Catholics who have not celebrated either confirmation or Eucharist or both. The majority of these folks are adults who missed confirmation when they were teens. They are usually going to church regularly, and they are sharing in Communion when they are at Mass. These folks are not candidates for the RCIA. The proper rite for them is the Rite of Confirmation.

Baptized Catholics and the RCIA

There is also an exception here. Like some baptized Protestants, there are some baptized Catholics who never celebrated first Communion and who have never been catechized. These folks are candidates for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. There are probably not a lot of them at Mass on Sunday, but on any given week, someone may be trying to find his or her way back home. An announcement in the bulletin is appropriate, but it needs to be tailored more to their own situation. We need to use words like “welcome” and “return” and “home.” They are not likely to know what “RCIA” means, and they may be put off by being asked to “join” something they are already a part of through baptism.

So where are we? If the Sunday bulletin is the medium we are using, the largest audience is faith-filled Protestants who are already in relationship with us. We need to find other media to attract other audiences. Given that, here is a sample announcement to try in your Sunday bulletin next week:

Why do Catholics do that?
Are you interested in learning more about the Catholic Church? Perhaps you’ve been thinking of becoming a member of [PARISH NAME], or perhaps you are just curious about what Catholics believe. Please join us for coffee and dessert on [DATE, TIME] for a 30-minute question-and-answer session. We’ll meet at [PLACE], and all are welcome. If you’d like more information, e-mail [NAME] at [E-MAIL ADDRESS].

What do you think? Do you have other examples of announcements you’ve used that have been effective? Click on the comments link and share your ideas.

• Welcoming baptized candidates
• Orthodox Christians and RCIA?
• Should we confirm Lutherans?

People often ask me who they need to have on their RCIA teams. By that, they generally mean, what job descriptions do they need to fill. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins makes the point that getting the right kind of people is more important than filling the right job descriptions. If you look for talented, gifted, faith-filled Catholics to serve on your team, the jobs will take care of themselves.

Here’s a helpful resource for putting the talents of the entire parish to work.

Dreams and Visions: Pastoral Planning for Lifelong Faith Formation
Bill Huebsch
Price: $14.95
Click here for details

The Lutheran Church has a comprehensive list of spiritual gifts on their Web site. Are most of these gifts represented on your team? Two that caught my attention and that I could do a better job recruiting for are “mercy” and “artistry” Take a look at the list and then click on the comment link. Let us know which gifts your team is strong in and which you need to develop.

And if you want to discern what your own spiritual gifts are, the Lutherans have a tool for that too. Click here to take your own assessment.

• Who’s on your team?
• Call your mother: Human experience as a locus for catechesis
• Is a complete catechumenate possible with a small team?

We have a new pastor, and he told us that we are not supposed to be confirming adult Catholics at the Easter Vigil. If confirmation is an initiation sacrament, what’s wrong with celebrating it at the Vigil?

Your question raises a larger issue of who should be celebrating sacraments at the Easter Vigil. I’ve seen group weddings celebrated at the Vigil because the couples were being “initiated” into married life. Simply attaching the word “initiation” to a sacrament does not automatically mean is needs to be celebrated at the Vigil.

Primary purpose of the Easter Vigil

The Easter Vigil is primarily for the initiation of unbaptized adults. If you turn to RCIA 23, you’ll read, “The celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation should take place at the Easter Vigil itself.” There are exceptions, but initiating unbaptized adults at the Vigil is the norm.

Children of catechetical age are considered “adults” for the purpose of the rite, but the Easter Vigil norm is a bit more flexible if they are under 14 years of age. Turn to paragraph 304 in the section on adaptations for children: “[C]elebration of the sacraments of initiation should preferably take place at the Easter Vigil or on a Sunday…” (emphasis added).

That’s really about it for the norm—the usual situation envisioned by the RCIA. Every other situation is some kind of an exception. Unfortunately, in some places, the exceptions are starting to become the norm. Let’s look at some of them.

Read the rest of this entry »

The news outlets are filled with speculation and commentary about Barack Obama’s transition team and his choice of cabinet members and White House staff. Yesterday the stock market rose 500 points simply because Obama announced who his Secretary of the Treasury would be. There are a lot of reasons that knowing who Obama plans to surround himself with are important, and I want to focus on one in particular. In both the primary and the general election campaigns, Obama was criticized for his lack of experience. Now the markets, the American people, and the world are watching to see if he chooses to place himself in the midst of a community of “elders”—people who have the experience he lacks.

What strikes me about this global anxiousness about who the neophyte president will associate himself with is that we might apply that same type of concern to the catechumens. Of the four markers of catechesis—word, community, worship, and service—I wonder if we pay enough attention to apprenticing the catechumens in what it means to live in community. What often happens is community is assumed. The catechumens are coming to church, they know the catechists, they have sponsors, and some of the parishioners are praying for them. From our point of view, they are already members of the community.

But if we think that through a little bit, they haven’t yet learned what it means to be among a band of disciples. Their fellow catechumens are not disciples—at least not experienced disciples, who, like Saint Paul, have run the good race and been tested over time. When the catechumens’ ship of faith is swamped by trials and temptations, who will they turn to for advice and support? Have they been sufficiently acquainted with the parish community so that they can identify a “transition team”? Do they have a “cabinet”—a core group of fellow believers, most more experienced than themselves, who they trust and who will give them honest feedback? Do they have a community that will challenge them to grow in faith and discipleship and hold them accountable to that growth? I think that if they do not yet have such a deep commitment to and understanding of Christian community, they may need more time to learn how to do this before they are initiated.

What do you think? How do you discern a catechumen’s readiness in the area of community? Click on the comment link below and share your thoughts.

I was inspired to write about this through Liz Strauss’ blog, Successful and Outstanding Bloggers. Earlier this month, she posted “6 Ways to Build Your Own Personal Developmental Network.” Another prominent blogger, Juliann Grant, commented on the post: “It is very helpful to have a core group of people to trust and get continual feedback on our personal and professional development.” I read that after having listened to the morning news dominated by speculation and commentary on the president-elect’s cabinet and staff choices and wondering why that would be more newsworthy than, say, the seizure of two more banks, which also happened yesterday.

• 5 questions for every RCIA team
• Add 5,000 families to your RCIA team
• The parish is the RCIA catechetical plan

This past weekend, I was helping to lead a Concerning the Baptized institute, which was cosponsored by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate and the Diocese of Monterey. As described on the Forum Web site, the institute explores the “suitable paths to Eucharist for both baptized-catechized adults and baptized-uncatechized adults.”

While I was there, I took the opportunity to ask some of the participants what they think it means to be catechized. Some of the folks on the video are brand new to initiation ministry, and some are long-time veterans. All of them are good-hearted folks who are making a big contribution of time and effort to minister in their parishes. After looking at the video (about a minute and a half long), hit the comment link and add your own definition of “catechized.”

“What does it mean to be catechized?”

I often help lead the Concerning the Baptized institute. The institute, which is sponsored by the diocese and the North American Forum on the Catechumenate, is all about how to catechize and ritually receive baptized candidates into full communion.

Well, not just that. It’s also about how to help baptized candidates complete their initiation. Those are two different theologies and perhaps two different catechetical experiences. These are some of the folks we’re talking about:

1. Catholics who were baptized as infants, but never raised in the faith. They are clearly completing their initiation.
2. Catholics who were baptized and celebrated first communion, but then stopped going to church. Because these folks have not celebrated confirmation, an initiation sacrament, we talk about them completing their initiation. But speaking of confirmation as an initiation sacrament gets confusing if it is celebrated after first communion. If Eucharist is the climax of the initiation process, how can confirmation complete initiation? Nevertheless, these folks are usually in need of an extensive catechetical process.
3. Catholics who were baptized and celebrated first communion and have remained active in their faith. They’re going to church and participating in the parish. These folks do not belong in an RCIA process in any form. They are not completing their initiation; they’re catching up on their sacraments.
4. Non-Catholics who were baptized as infants, raised in the Christian faith, and have been active in their tradition. These folks are not completing their initiation. They have been fully initiated, and their initiation is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. What they don’t yet have is full communion with us, and they are being received into that full communion.
5. Non-Catholics who were baptized as infants and were never raised in the faith. This is the most difficult group to categorize. At least for me. Are they completing their initiation? In some non-Catholic traditions, water baptism is full initiation. But if they never lived out their faith, aren’t they in some sense still being initiated? On the other hand, initiation is initiation. Baptism is baptism. It’s God who acts, not us. So wouldn’t it be more appropriate to think of these folks being received into full communion?

Figuring out who’s who matters because knowing their status helps determine their ritual and catechetical path.

What kinds of folks do you wind up dealing with? What liturgies do you celebrate with them? Do they journey along side by side with the catechumens, or do you have separate processes? There is a short poll below, and you can also click the comments button to offer some thoughts.

Concerning the baptized
Who do you celebrate the Rite of Welcoming with?	All baptized candidates Only uncatechized baptized candidates Only uncatechized, baptized, Catholic candidates We do not celebrate the Rite of Welcome
	Current Results

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.

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.

QI was wondering if you could give some guidance about sacramental preparation for older children (baptized Catholic, but formally uncatechized) 3rd grade and above, since there is little consistency among parishes within our diocese.

In most cases, these children (primarily 3rd-6th grade) have had no formal catechesis and have not celebrated first confession or first communion. Some of the parishes integrate them into a regular religious education program and use a two-year process, which would include sacramental preparation in the second year (for first confession and first communion only and confirmation later, usually in the 8th grade).

Many parishes place them in an RCIA program with some sacramental preparation for first confession and first communion in the second year, but they are not confirmed.

Then, there are some parishes that place them in an RCIA program, and they do receive all sacraments at the Easter Vigil; there is a distinction made at the Vigil between the neophytes and candidates.

Any thoughts or suggestions on what the best direction to go might be?

AOh my, what a tangle! Unless you are a diocesan employee, I think you have to focus on what is right for your parish. It might be better if all the parishes in your diocese had a uniform policy, but that may not be a problem you can solve. So what’s at stake here?

Read the rest of this entry »