When do you introduce your introduce your inquirers to Scripture? I think for most folks, it’s pretty early on. I try to at least connect the inquirers’ stories with a story from Scripture, even if I don’t pull out a Bible and read the story exactly. Certainly by the time they are showing signs of readiness for the Rite of Acceptance, they should have a rudimentary understanding of the Bible.

That’s why I’ve never liked the optional “Presentation of a Bible” in the Rite of Acceptance. I try to make sure the inquirers have their own Bible and are reading it regularly well before they become catechumens.

It’s easiest for the inquirers if the parish has a supply of Bibles on hand. If you have the budget for it, you can give them away. If budget money is scarce, you could ask the inquirers for a donation or ask the sponsors to buy a Bible as a gift for the inquirers. A paperback version of The New American Bible for Catholics: With Revised New Testament and Revised Book of Psalms is $7.00 on Amazon. And if you order four or more at a time (more than $25.00 worth), shipping is free.

I also think it is important to put an actual Bible in their hands and not a missallette or other lectionary-like resources.

How to read the Bible

To get inquirers started on reading Scripture, first teach them how to navigate. They can always look in the table of contents if they get lost. But here are a couple tricks for finding your way around more quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

QWe have a catechumen who would have been initiated at the Easter Vigil last month, except her husband’s annulment had not come through in time. Now it has come through. She has been in the catechumenate for almost two years now. Can we celebrate initiation outside of the Easter Vigil? What about the Rite of Sending and the Rite of Election? Would we do the Scrutinies within class? Is there a format to follow?

AYour catechumen’s case falls under “unusual circumstances,” which are described in paragraphs 26-30 in the RCIA. See especially paragraph 29, which says Election is to be celebrated six weeks before baptism, and there should be sufficient time for the Scrutinies and Presentations.

If you follow these guidelines, you should be able to celebrate all the rites to the greatest extent possible, knowing some compromises will have to be made.
For example:

• Celebrate the Rite of Election at a Sunday Mass six weeks before you plan to celebrate the Initiation sacraments. You need to get the bishop to delegate authority to the pastor to do this. (Or maybe the bishop would come to the parish to preside himself! See paragraph 29.)
• You would not do a Rite of Sending because you aren’t sending your catechumen anywhere. However, you can adapt this rehearsal outline for the Rite of Sending for the celebration of the Rite of Election in your parish.
• Click here for a handout here on the Rite of Election that you might want to adapt to give out to your parish assembly.
• It might be pastorally best for your Sunday assembly if you move the Scrutinies and Presentations to “convenient weekdays” (see paragraph 20), with as many people from the parish as care to come, and this may include the team and the other participants in the process. Click here for a rehearsal outline for the scrutinies.
• You would then want to celebrate the Initiation sacraments on a Sunday (see paragraph 27).

It is important to strive to give your catechumen the fullest experience of the rites possible. These rites have value even if they are done on a modest scale, with a small assembly. She will only be baptized once in her life (we hope!). She deserves to experience everything the rites have to offer.

Has anyone else had experience with celebrating the Initiation Rites outside of the Easter Vigil? Click on the comments button below and tell us about it.

I recently conducted a catechetical session for a parish that is planning to build a new baptismal font. To begin, I asked those who came—a rather large group of about ninety adults and teenagers—to recall a memorable experience of baptism they either took part in or witnessed. Everybody had one! They shared warm, enthusiastic memories with each other, and some of the stories were shared with the large group too. This was clearly a group of people who loved their parish and had a high regard for the sacraments and for the church.

Their response to the next exercise, however, was telling. I asked for a show of hands in answer to the following questions: What stood out in their memory? The people? The action? The words? The emotions? The water? Hands went up for each and every item—except the water. The water did not stand out for anybody in that room, among all the good memories they cherished.

Clearly, they needed a new font.

But their response to the exercise got me thinking. Where are our powerful memories of baptismal water—that primary “sign” of the foundational sacrament of the whole Christian life? If our sacramental system is going to survive in this century as a living organism and not just a museum piece, there has to be a core of real-life experience at the center of it. Are we etching the sacraments in the deep places of the soul, in today’s church?

Water has been for me the centerpiece of a whole liturgical experience that qualifies as “awe-inspiring” or “spine-tingling” as Edward Yarnold, SJ, once called it. I can still see the light shimmering on the water of the glorious font at St. Paul the Apostle church in New York as we gathered around it for Easter Vigil baptisms. The completely drenched appearance of the newly-baptized at St. John Cathedral in Milwaukee comes to my mind; I can see them dripping, smiling, triumphant. I remember the astonishing depths of the water in which my husband-to-be was baptized at St. Ignatius Loyola church in New York—he was immersed in the water three times, each time diving in deeper than the last, until finally the pastor and sponsor thought they’d lost him! These are powerful memories. For me, the stories of creation and crossing the Red sea found a touchstone in the waters of these fonts—waters that were breathtakingly beautiful, dangerous, and a place where miracles happen.

You don’t get the same effect standing around a punch bowl. Yet I’m afraid that something the size of a punchbowl, or even smaller, is what most Catholics call the font.

What do you remember of baptism at this year’s Easter Vigil?

During the Triduum, the question arises about when to dismiss the Elect and the catechumens. (If you are engaged in a year-round process, you will likely have both.) If parish leaders understand the liturgical role that the unbaptized have in worship, it will be clear that the Elect and the catechumens are dismissed before the priestly action of the liturgy begins.

Holy Thursday

In the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the first action restricted to the baptized priesthood is the prayer of the faithful. So the Elect and the catechumens would be dismissed before the general intercessions. They would ordinarily be present for and participate in the washing of the feet if your parish chooses to celebrate that option.

Good Friday

Likewise during the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, the first act exclusively performed by the baptized priesthood is the offering of the General Intercessions. So, just as on Sunday and at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Elect and the catechumens would be kindly dismissed before this prayer.

Who leads them?

In many (all?) communities, it would be a hardship to ask a catechist to leave the worshiping assembly on these days to lead the Elect and catechumens in the dismissal reflection. And, in fact, there is no need to. The Elect will have been participating in dismissal reflections for a year or more by this point. One or more of them should have no difficulty leading the reflection sessions.

Easter

If you are practicing a year-round initiation process, you will have catechumens who will not be baptized at this year’s Easter Vigil. Should they participate in the Easter Vigil? Two pastoral difficulties present themselves in this case. The first is that the powerful symbols and ritual actions of the Vigil may have less impact the second (or third) time around, in the year the catechumens will be celebrating their own initiation. Wouldn’t it be more pastorally effective for them to experience the great Paschal fire, the Exsultet, the extensive readings and prayers of this night, and so on, for the first time on the night of their own baptism?

The second pastoral issue is who would lead them in their dismissal reflection? Unlike the Elect, the catechumens are unlikely to have a great deal of experience with this process, and it would be a great hardship to ask a catechist to be absent for the first time in which the neophytes participate in the Eucharist.

The best solution, perhaps, is to have the catechumens present at the Easter Sunday liturgy—along with the neophytes in their white robes—and to ask a catechist to lead the dismissal at that liturgy.

Let’s suppose you want to honor the baptized by celebrating their reception into the Catholic Church at the first Sunday Eucharist after they are ready. How do you deal with the pastoral issue that they will feel like they are missing something in comparison with the Elect who will be baptized at the Great Easter Vigil? The key is, from the beginning of their relationship with the parish, to identify them much more closely with the Order of the Faithful than with the Order of the Catechumens. Here are several strategies.

1. Remember the Rite of Welcome is optional. As presented in the RCIA, there are a great many similarities to the Rite of Acceptance. It would help the baptized candidates for reception identify more closely with the faithful if you skipped the Rite of Welcome altogether. Instead, use an adaptation of the very simple Order for the Welcoming of New Parishioners from the Book of Blessings.
2. Separate the candidates for reception and the candidates for baptism into different catechetical groups. Every parish is supposed to have ongoing formation for its members. The baptized candidates can be integrated into that formation process while the catechumens remain in the catechumante. If your parish does not yet have ongoing adult faith formation, use the arrival of the candidates for reception as a spur to start.
3. Set up separate sponsor training. The needs of the baptized will be different than the needs of the unbaptized, and the sponsors for each group will require different skills. The ideal sponsors for the candidates for reception will be Catholics who were baptized as infants and cannot imagine any greater joy than to have Christians all their lives. Their very being should communicate what a great gift the candidates for reception have had all these many years.
4. Do not delay their reception. Baptized candidates may be, and should be, received at any Sunday liturgy. Some will require relatively little catechesis and others significantly more. However, whenever the community discerns a candidate is in fact ready, he or she may be received. If some of the other candidates are not yet ready, their reception would take place after more formation has better prepared them.
5. Be sure to receive all those who are ready before Ash Wednesday so the candidates for reception can participate fully in the initation of the Elect. They should understand their mission as disciples is to “go and baptize,” and not to wish they could get themselves re-baptized.
6. Give these brand new Catholics a major role at the Easter Vigil. They should be right up at the font, helping the Elect into the water, handing them towels as they emerge, escorting them to their chaning rooms, assisting the presider with holding the oils or books during the chrismation, serving as communion ministers, and so on. Yes, there has to also be room for the regular ministers of the parish to serve in these roles, but they could do so as mentors and guides to the new Catholics.
7. Ask the newly received Catholics to help serve as hosts and planners for the reception for the Elect. With the help of their sponsors, the newly received Catholics should project an attitidude that says to the neophytes: “We’re overjoyed that you are now one of us.”

When should baptized candidates be received into the Catholic Church?

Paul Turner in When Other Christians become Catholic, says, “Whenever they are ready” (p. 161).

The National Statues for the Catechumenate say, not “at the Easter Vigil lest there be any confusion of such baptized Christians with the candidates for baptism…” (33).

As I talk to folks about this issue, it seems there are several rationales in play. There are those who think of everyone as somewhat equally on a conversion journey. Believing that, there would seem to be little difference between the faith of a catechumen, a baptized candidate seeking reception into the Catholic Church, and the average Catholic who celebrates Mass every Sunday. There is something to be said for this point of view. After all, if a thousand years is as a single day to God (2 Peter 3:8), what can the meager differences in our faith lives seem like?

Another group of folks would tend to see the catechumens and the candidates for reception as people who have had a religious awakening. They have been led by the Holy Spirit to the Roman Catholic Church because they understand Roman Catholicism to the fullest expression of their newly awakened faith. The catchechumens and the baptized candidates for reception are both groups of seekers joining the Catholic Church.

And there might be a third kind of initiation team that would see the catechumens and the uncatechized baptized candidates for reception as beginners on the faith journey. Those who have been baptized and somewhat catechized (or maybe even well catechized) are different from the beginners in faith and more like the weekly-Mass Catholics.

All of the parishes that would hold any of these views would be accepting baptized Christians into the Catholic Church at the Easter vigil, although the third group might receive only the previously uncatechized Christians.

The difficulty with each of these rationales or descriptions of particular journeys of faith is that they each assumes some level of accomplishment on the part of the individual. Each position presumes the individual has come to some level (or not) of faith that would determine the ritual celebration of his or her movement from one level of status to another.

What is misunderstood in each instance is that faith is a gift—a total, free, and undeserved gift from God. Baptism is the ritual celebration of that gift, and the sacrament of baptism forever and completely changes a person into one of the chosen, a child of God.

Afterwards, one can then become a heretic, an apostate, a backslider, or the next Mother Teresa, but one can never undo God’s choice. There is an actual and real difference between the baptized and the unbaptized. There is no comparable difference between two baptized people of different denominations. Both are heirs to the kingdom and disciples of Christ. Both are bestowed with the full rights, responsibilities, duties, and privileges of those who belong to Christ.

The entire lenten process, which has its culmination in the Great Easter Vigil, is about marking and celebrating the miracle that God has chosen yet again to name another of us as son or daughter. We should not attempt to diminish the mighty act of God by seeming to ignore the fact that the baptized candidates for reception have already been chosen, “lest there be any confusion of such baptized Christians with the candidates for baptism.”