How’s mystagogy going for you right now, in the middle of June? More importantly, how is it going for the neophytes?

Some teams think the period of mystagogy ends with Pentecost, but that’s not what the U.S. bishops think.

Flip your copy of the RCIA open to the very back and look for the the National Statutes on the Catechumenate. Run your finger down to paragraph 24:

After the immediate mystagogy or postbaptismal catechesis during the Easter season, the program for the neophytes should extend until the anniversary of Christian initiation, with at least monthly assemblies of the neophytes for their deeper Christian formation and incorporation into the full life of the Christian community.

How do you get them to come back for mystagogy?

Now you might be thinking you couldn’t get them to come back for regular mystagogy, much less a mystagogy that extends all year long. Well, you might be right, but that’s still no reason not to try. Before you do give it a shot, however, take a moment to put yourself in the new Catholics’ shoes.

They might be feeling a little adrift right now. It’s been about two months since the Easter Vigil. The security of the small group of regulars at the weekly catechetical sessions is no longer there. And they might not really know anyone else in the parish. If you were in that situation, what would attract you to a “monthly assembly”?

Invite neophytes to parish events

I did a little snooping around and read some of your parish bulletins online. One parish is having a Summer Cabbage Ball Fun League that starts next month. I don’t know what cabbage ball is, but for a $25 fee, you get a t-shirt, a pizza party, and all the cabbage ball you can handle. What if the godparents called up the neophytes and personally invited them to play cabbage ball? Or at least come to the pizza party? And perhaps the league organizers would waive the $25 fee for the neophytes.

Another parish is rounding up a group of parishioners to go see the town’s minor league baseball team. Tickets are $7.00. Perhaps the parish might spring for the seven bucks. That, and a personal invitation from you or the godparents would probably get most of the neophytes to the “assembly.”

And a few of you are sponsoring monthly book clubs. What a perfect event to invite the neophytes to, especially the introverts. If they are feeling shy, they can just hide behind the book until they warm up to the group.

A lot of you are having farewell parties for pastors that are moving on. And others are having welcome parties for new pastors. Have the godparents get on the phone and invite the neophytes for some tears and cheers.

Let them know you care

Even if the neophytes don’t come to these “monthly assemblies” in your parish, they will feel more connected to the community just knowing you haven’t forgotten about them. Give it a try, and let us know what happens.

And what about those of you that are already implementing successful, year-long mystagogies? What tips can you share with the rest of us?

For more ideas on helping the neophytes during their first year of Christian life, check out Living Baptism Daily: A Guide for the Baptized by Lawrence E. Mick.

It’s good to see you again. If you enjoyed this post, please share with a friend or colleague. Thanks for visiting!

The Paschal Triduum is the center of the liturgical year, and the Easter Vigil is its high point. It is the liturgy at which night turns into day, and death into resurrection.

Why vigil? St. Augustine had a pithy insight into this question: “We now need not wait for the Lord to arrive…. And yet our annual celebration is not simply a commemoration of a past event; it implies a present action on our part, which we accomplish by our life of faith and of which this Vigil is the symbol. The entire course of time is in fact one long night during which the church keeps watch, waiting for the return of the Lord, waiting “˜until He comes.’”

The Easter Vigil is a masterpiece of inculturation. The oldest annual celebration in the calendar, it bears the marks of its creative handling over almost two millennia. Let it wash over you, and lead you into the mystery of Easter tonight.

This liturgy is full of unsuspected delights.

For some RCIA teams, the period of postbaptismal catechesis, or mystagogy, seems to be the most difficult part of the catechumenate to implement. I commonly hear complaints that “they don’t come back” for mystagogy, and I get requests for “a good resource” to use during the mystagogy sessions. To me, those kind of comments reflect a different understanding of mystagogy than what the RCIA calls for. If we are expecting neophytes to come to mystagogy and we are hoping for a resource from which to lead the mystagogy, we are thinking of mystagogy as something like classes that take place in a discrete place over a set amount of time.

Test drive the faith

The RCIA, on the other hand, envisions mystagogy as a principle for living that the neophytes have been learning and practicing throughout their catechumenate. The mystagogical “period” does not end after 50 days. Rather, the 50 days (or the 365 days called for in the year-long mystagogy in National Statutes 24) is an intense period of test-driving the newly acquired skill of Christian living. Note what the RCIA says about this period:

This is a time for the community and the neophytes to grow in deepening their grasp of the paschal mystery and in making it part of their lives…. (244)

If we take that seriously, it’s clear that thinking of mystagogy as something the neophytes “come to” and that we might be able to create a “resource” for it are misunderstandings of what is supposed to be going on after baptism.

The neophytes are now full members of the body of Christ. As such, their job is now the same as our job—live the gospel. Whatever it is we do is what the neophytes are supposed to be doing. So what are we doing?

Sunday Mass is the place of mystagogy

Are we, the “old-phytes,” participating in weekly Easter catechetical sessions? Ideally, we are, but actually, most of us are not. What then is the primary catechesis for us in the Easter season? It is the Sunday Mass. And so also should it be for the neophytes:

Since the distinctive spirit and power of the period of postbaptismal catechesis or mystagogy derive from the new, personal experience of the sacraments and of the community, its main setting is the so-called Masses for neophytes, that is, the Sunday Masses of the Easter season. (247)

The place for mystagogy, then, is the Easter Sunday liturgies. The resource for postbaptismal catechesis is the personal experience of the sacraments and the worshipping community.

Apply new skills

The neophytes are like any of us who have learned a new skill. If a child keeps falling off her bike, she is still learning to ride. She’s not a rider yet. Once she can go several feet without falling, she’s learned the skill. She’s a rider-a beginning rider, but a rider. The new skill the neophytes have learned is offering a sacramental sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. This is a huge deal. We need to help them practice this new skill, running alongside of them, perfecting our own “grasp of the paschal mystery” even as we are keeping an eagle-eye on the neophytes as they practice. Too often, we confuse the idea of practicing new skills with signing the neophytes up to be lectors or communion ministers. Ack! Would you try to teach your daughter to play tennis at the same time she’s perfecting her new piano skills? One thing at a time! Keep the neophytes focused on perfecting their worship skills during the period of mystagogy.

What skills do the neophytes need to practice?

Here are two essential skills for the neophytes.

Develop a sacramental imagination

We cannot “see” God the way we see a photograph. We “see” God through sacramental signs. Saint Augustine focused on four major sacramental signs that he expected the neophytes to master: the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the font, and the altar. Augustine would hand on the first three during the period of purification and enlightenment. The last, the altar and all that takes place there, he would hand on in a series of “mystagogical catecheses” during the Masses of the Easter Season. This was not catechesis as we might think of a religious education class. It was a specialized preaching that would draw upon the symbols of the liturgy—especially the bread and wine that would later become the Body and Blood of Christ—to lay out for the neophytes and the rest of the faithful the full cosmic import of Jesus death and resurrection.

Act on the faith

In his homily, Augustine would point out to the neophytes that, just as the bread and wine were to be changed, so too had they been changed. The neophytes, now part of the Body of Christ, have the responsibility of being Christ in the world. Of course, they have been practicing this skill throughout their catechumenate, but now they have the fullness of Christ within them. Their proclamation of the good news to the oppressed of the world is a direct result of their sacramental sacrifice of dying and rising to Christ in the liturgy.

Eight tasks for the team

In order to make mystagogy successful, here are eight things the team needs to do.

1. Throughout the catechumenate, focus on the symbolic imagination of the faith, helping the catechumens to “see” God in all the activities of their daily lives.
2. Throughout the catechumenate, help the catechumens understand they are not “becoming Catholic.” They are dying to themselves and converting to a new lifestyle. They are not “getting baptized.” They are learning a new way of living.
3. Make it clear to the neophytes and their godparents that they must be at all the Sunday Masses of the Easter season. This should be one of the criteria for “readiness” before the catechumens are discerned to be eligible to become elect.
4. Prepare a series of Easter homilies that lead the neophytes through an exploration of the sacramental signs of the liturgy. The readings for Year A in the Easter Season are especially suitable for this. (See RCIA 247).
5. Prepare a special place in the worshiping assembly for the neophytes to sit with their godparents. On Easter Sunday, introduce the neophytes by name to the assembly. (See RCIA 248.)
6. Provide a time soon after the Easter Vigil for the neophytes to reflect with their godparents and other members of the parish on their experience of the Triduum.
7. Ask some of the neophytes who were particularly insightful in their reflections to share some of their thoughts with the assembly at the next Sunday liturgy.
8. Keep Pentecost Sunday focused on the neophytes. Hold a parish-wide celebration for them. Invite the neophytes from the previous Easter Season to join the festivities as honored guests (See RCIA 249-250.)

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Do you have any recommendations for “some sort of celebration” at the end of the Easter season that the RCIA mentions in paragraph 249? Our parish has traditionally done a “commissioning,” a blessing prayer over the neophytes by the community at the end of mass on Pentecost. Does it need to be on Pentecost or is the following Sunday fine?

I don’t think there is a specific guideline for the celebration mentioned in paragraph 249. My sense is that the Rite means simply a party—a parish pot luck or reception after Mass, perhaps. I would think it could include a blessing prayer over the neophytes, but I would be reluctant to call it a “commissioning.“ I would worry that might diminish their initiation as their “great commission.” If you are going to pray a blessing over the neophytes at Mass, it seems like Pentecost would be the ideal Sunday. If you are going to offer the blessing at the party, any Sunday near Pentecost, before or after, would be appropriate. The following paragraph in the RCIA notes that the neophytes from the previous year be brought together to give thanks to God on their anniversary. It might be a joyful moment for those who are ending their neophyte year be at the party also to be witnesses to those who are about to begin their neophyte year.

How about the rest of you? Any suggestions for or examples of implementing RCIA 249?

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.

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: ((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))

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.

What do you do after the Easter Vigil? What does the ritual text call us to do and be for the neophytes during the sacred time of mystagogy? The following checklist will give you guidance and suggestions for effective mystagogy.

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• “Expect” neophytes to gather the week after initiation to share stories and pictures of their Easter Vigil celebration and to share the Scriptures for the Sundays of Easter in light of their sacramental experiences.
• Avoid the temptation to use the six weeks of Easter as a time for information and recruitment for parish service. The appropriate time for guest speakers and sharing information about various ministries is during the initial stages of formation.
• Affirm the primary role of the assembly in liturgy and the place of the neophytes in that assembly. Avoid having neophytes serve in catechetical or liturgical ministries for at least a year, and avoid using them as RCIA sponsors or team members. Ministry flows from the experience of being a member of the assembly and then being called to ministry. The newest neophytes are not meant to be a new pool of parish volunteers! Neophytes ought to be engaged in social and service ministries from the time of the catechumenate and gradually experience the connection between the celebration of Eucharist and the eucharistic lives they live through these ministries. This takes time and reflection on what it means to be a “regular Catholic in the pews.”

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Many of us think of mystagogy as the final period of the catechumenal process, occurring in the 50 days after the Easter Triduum. It is, however, a much broader reality. We need to shift our thinking a bit. Mystagogy is not only for the 50 days, but for all our days. From the very beginning, our encounters with the inquirers and later the catechumens should be mystagogical.

Defining mystagogy
It might help to break apart the word a little. The root of “mystagogy” is “agogy,” which comes from the Greek word “agogos.” That means “leader.” So pedagogy, for example is about leading (or teaching) children. A synagogue is a gathering place (syn-”together”) to which people are led. Mystagogy is a process of leading (or training) into the mystery. Or, perhaps a better way to say that is that mystagogy is initiation into that which is not yet fully revealed.

Even more specifically, mystagogy is an initiation into God’s self revelation. We’ve all experienced God’s revelation. If you think about it, you can probably recall something that happened to you just a moment ago that you’d identify as God acting in your life. Certainly you’ve experienced an act of God within the last 24 hours. God is acting all the time. God is in every breath we take and every blink of our eyes. It’s not as though God chooses some obscure moment to break into our lives with thunderbolts or floods. Just the opposite. God is so present that we sometimes take the ongoing, constant revelation of God for granted. We have to actively remember how God has been acting in our lives to fully see.

So try this.

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Sometimes a sense of futility creeps upon us. We despair that “they don’t come back for mystagogy.” Or we fret that “we can’t find enough sponsors.” We bemoan the lack of participation among the members of the assembly. And now the diocese wants us to run the catechumenate “year round” when we are already stretched too thin.

How do we even begin to think about solving these and similar problems? If you are like me, you fantasize that there is “an answer” out there. Some parish or some person smarter or more experienced than I am must have solved all this already. But down deep, we know that really is a fantasy, don’t we?

Wicked problems

Click here for 10 characteristics of wicked problems

These kinds of problems are what Horst Rittle, a pioneering theorist of design and planning, and late professor at the University of California, Berkeley, called “wicked problems.” Rittle figured out that many problems cannot be solved by “experts” dropping in and delivering a ten-point plan, even if they have experience in your specific area of difficulty. This is, in fact, the very type of solution most of us go looking for. We go to a workshop or buy a book or hire a speaker to just tell us what to do. The thing that makes your problem “wicked” is there is no one solution. And each potential solution raises other problems. And, this is really key, each problem is unique. The reason your neophytes don’t come back for mystagogy is essentially different than the reason other neophytes in other parishes don’t come back. In fact, the reasons among your own neophytes are all unique as well.

Jim Conklin, author of Dialogue Mapping: Creating Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems, went on to develop Rittle’s ideas further. Conklin says wicked problems have these characteristics:

1. The problem is not understood until after formulation of a solution.
2. Stakeholders have radically different world views and different frames for understanding the problem.
3. Constraints and resources to solve the problem change over time.
4. The problem is never solved.

Don’t you just hate that last one?

There is no “solution”

But think about it for a minute. Isn‘t the lack of a “solution” the very thing that makes the conversion process an encounter with grace? The catechumenate is not a puzzle. There is no final answer. It is a mystery—a mystery of love. How do we solve that mystery? We can’t. We can only enter into it.

Conklin says:

Because of social complexity, solving a wicked problem is fundamentally a social process. Having a few brilliant people or the latest project management technology is no longer sufficient.

We might paraphrase that to say that because of the radical, loving relationship of the Father and the Son (in which we are immersed through the power of the Holy Spirit), solving a wicked problem is fundamentally an ecclesial process. Having a few brilliant theologians or RCIA experts is insufficient.

The answer is the community

In other words, the initiation process, from start to finish

…is the responsibility of all the baptized. Therefore the community must always be fully prepared in the pursuit of its apostolic vocation to give help to those who are searching for Christ…. Hence, the entire community must help the candidates and the catechumens throughout the process of initiation. (RCIA 9)

This means that all the multiple, complex, disjointed, busy and distracted parts of the Body of Christ must share a commitment to entering into the messy process of conversion together (with each other and with the catechumens). And they must share a commitment to love and support one another in that process. This won’t “solve the problem.” But it will bring us all more fully into the love of Christ.

[This post was inspired by Jim McGee. See his post on Solving puzzles or framing mysteries for more information on wicked problems.]

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?