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 »

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!

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 »

In your RCIA process, do your catechumens and baptized candidates know the difference between Eucharist and communion? Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Center recently released a pastoral letter in which he ended his diocese’s practice of celebrating communion services in place of weekday or Sunday Mass. His reason for doing so was, partly, because he thought the celebration of communion services caused people to misunderstand the difference between Eucharist and communion.

This is how he described the difference: Read the rest of this entry »

The Concord Pastor reminds us on this feast day about the implications of Pentecost. He cites Economic Justice for All, which bears reading for all of us who are trying to be faithful to RCIA 75:4:¹

After Jesus had appeared to them and when they received the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:1-12), they became apostles of the good news to the ends of the earth. In the face of poverty and persecution they transformed human lives and formed communities which became signs of the power and presence of God. Sharing in this same resurrection faith, contemporary followers of Christ can face the struggles and challenges that await those who bring the gospel vision to bear on our complex economic and social world. (Economic Justice for All, no. 47, US Conference of Catholic Bishops)

This, I think, points out the clear distinction between a classroom model of faith formation in the RCIA and a mystagogical or apprenticeship model. Our task is not merely to teach the catechumens about the apostolic mission of the church. Our task is to form followers of Christ who will transform lives and create communities that challenge the structures of endemic poverty and persecution in the world.

Check out the Concord Pastor’s entire post by clicking here.

1. Since the church’s life is apostolic, catechumens should also learn how to work actively with others to spread the Gospel and build up the church by the witness of their lives and by professing their faith. RCIA 75.4 [↩]

I just got back from Orlando where I was attending the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership conference. I was hoping to learn some things about how the catechumenate is handled in clustered parishes, but, regrettably, there wasn’t much discussion about that. Many years ago, I worked in the very rural diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota. (There was a priest from New Ulm at the conference. We were talking together for about five minutes before we recognized each other. I guess we’re both a little older and grayer!)

At that time, the diocese had several clustered parishes but not too many that were really doing the catechumenate. Most had something they called “RCIA,” but only a few were really implementing the full process. And those tended to be the larger, non-clustered parishes.

At that time, these were some of the challenges I thought the clusters would have to deal with once they moved closer to full implementation:

1. What do you do when you have no catechumens—sometimes for years? How to do keep a team together, or pull one together, when an inquirer shows up?
2. If you have two or three catechumens, spread out over two or three parishes in the cluster, how do you manage the catechetical sessions? Separate sessions in each parish? Rotate sessions among the parishes? Stick with just one parish? And in each of these examples, how do you make it clear to the community that they are the primary catechist?
3. Celebrating initiation itself is actually not much of a problem. If there is a single priest for two or three parishes, he can only celebrate the Easter Vigil in one of them, so the catechumens from all the parishes in the cluster will be baptized in whatever parish the Vigil is in. But what about the rest of the rites? Would the Rite of Acceptance and the Scrutinies be celebrated in a single parish or in the home parishes of the catechumens?

Click on the comments link to share your own questions or your experiences. I have another thought to share in the comments as well.

As you know, Pope Benedict XVII is in the midst of his first visit (as pope) to the United States. Realizing that America is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world, one of the events he participated in was an ecumenical prayer service at Saint Joseph’s Church in Yorkville, New York. During his remarks, he said:

Only by “holding fast” to sound teaching (2 Thess 2:15; cf. Rev 2:12-29) will we be able to respond to the challenges that confront us in an evolving world. Only in this way will we give unambiguous testimony to the truth of the Gospel and its moral teaching. This is the message which the world is waiting to hear from us. Like the early Christians, we have a responsibility to give transparent witness to the “reasons for our hope”, so that the eyes of all men and women of goodwill may be opened to see that God has shown us his face (cf. 2 Cor 3:12-18) and granted us access to his divine life through Jesus Christ.

I think this passage raises several important questions for catechumenate team members, who are certainly working hard to “hold fast” to sound teaching. Here are some things that crossed my mind.

1. What does “sound teaching” look like? How do I know if it is sound?
2. What are some of the “challenges that confront us in an evolving world”? What is an actual challenge that I personally face every day that my faith helps me respond to?
3. Do I give “unambiguous testimony to the truth of the Gospel”? Hey, I went to graduate school. I excelled in ambiguity. But when I am talking with catechumens, how successful am I at giving a strong and clear testimony to the truth of the Gospel?
4. Am I giving a “transparent witness to the ‘reasons for hope’” to men and women of goodwill? What about that cashier who was chatting with her friend instead of ringing up my eggs and bread? What about that guy who cut in front of me to grab the lone floor person’s attention at Home Depot?

I read a story a couple of months ago about a soldier who is going back to Iraq for his fourth tour. He volunteered. When a reporter asked him why he is going back, he said it was because he felt loved there. He knew the other soldiers in his unit would give their lives for him, and he for them. He said that when he was home, here in the U.S., he felt like people on the highway would just as soon run him into the retaining wall as look at him.

Sure, his story may be a little extreme, but how many others like him do we encounter everyday? People who don’t see the “reasons for hope” that we do? The questions Pope Benedict raises, it seems to me, are the kinds of question that should be most on our minds and hearts as we try to teach the faith.

If you want to comment on any of my questions or raise some of your own, hit the comment link. And I’ll be the first one to comment!

(Thanks to Whispers for the text of Pope Benedict’s address.)

Rita Ferrone, one of the team members here at TeamRCIA, recently published Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Rediscovering Vatican II). It’s an excellent resource for catechumenate ministers who would like more background about the meaning and purpose of the liturgy. I wrote a review of the book on Amazon, which begins:

Rita Ferrone’s brief examination of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy could not be more timely. As the Vatican II generation moves toward its sunset years, we are obligated to pass on to our successors what we can of the fervor and passion that so energized the liturgical reform in the twentieth century. It is important that the church remembers what was intended and what still needs to be done.

You can read the entire review by clicking here.

If you have inquirers who are ready to become catechumens now, you need to celebrate the Rite of Acceptance with them before Pentecost in order for them to be eligible for initiation at the next Easter Vigil. Flip open your RCIA to the very back. Look for the section that is titled “Appendix III: National Statutes for the Catechumenate.” Then find paragraph 6, and underline the last sentence:

Ordinarily [the period of the catechumenate] should go from at least the Easter season of one year until the next; preferably it should begin before Lent in one year and extend until Easter of the following year.

I know, I know, you are completely worn out right now, and you can’t even think of starting up another group of catechumens. Well breathe easy for a second. I’m going to give you a few tips to make things simpler.

1. Note that what is required is that the inquirers become catechumens and participate in Sunday liturgy for one full liturgical year. While it would be ideal to begin weekly catechetical sessions with them immediately, it isn’t required. If you can only do the bare minimum right now, celebrate the Rite of Acceptance with them and make sure their sponsors are taking them to Mass.
2. If you can rely a little more on the sponsors, ask them to take the catechumens out for coffee after Mass for the next few weeks and discuss the liturgy. No teaching, just talking.
3. If you have neophytes this year, you are likely having some kind of meetings with them during the Easter season. Invite the new catechumens to participate in those and call on the neophytes to share what they’ve learned and experienced with the catechumens.
4. Is your parish holding parent sessions for first communion and confirmation preparation? With a little creativity and flexibility, adult catechumens could participate in those. Child catechumens could join with their peers and get a sense of what they will be getting ready for.
5. Ask some of the folks who were initiated last year or the year before to lead the catechumens in an extended breaking-open-of-the-Word each week until you can begin more formal catechetical sessions. They should be pretty good at it if you did a good job with them during their catechumenate.
6. Do you have a parish Bible study or faith-sharing group? (Or does a neighboring parish?) Ask if the new catechumens can sit in for a few weeks until you are ready to go.
7. Also remember the requirement for a year-long catechumenate is for catechumens. Baptized candidates, especially those who are somewhat catechized, don’t require a full liturgical year of catechesis.

If you are looking for a Sunday to celebrate the Rite of Acceptance, the Sixth Sunday of Easter (A) is a good choice. The assigned gospel, John 14:15-21, is part of Jesus’ farewell to the disciples in which he promises to send them the Holy Spirit. “Whoever loves me,” he tells them, “will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”

If your parish celebrates the Ascension on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the gospel for the Seventh Sunday (A), John 17:1-11, can be read on the Sixth. It is also an appropriate text for the Rite of Acceptance: “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me.”

If you don’t tell anybody I told you and you really want to stretch things, you could wait until the Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (June 8, 2008) for the Rite of Acceptance. It’s not ideal, but it is better than trying to cram in a six-month process staring in October. And the gospel, Matthew 9:9-13, is perfect: “As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.”

If you do have a Rite of Acceptance scheduled before mid-June, hit the comment button below and tell us about it!