I’m working on the editorial plan for Today’s Parish Minister for next year, and the theme for the March issue is the catechumenate. I need to come up with four feature articles that explore that theme. Here’s what I’ve thought of so far. If you have any comments or other suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Thanks.

1. Ten reasons year-round is easier than a 9-month RCIA
2. Catechumenate in small or clustered parishes
3. What goes wrong at the Rite of Election—and how to fix it
4. Parish Council Agenda: Mystagogy isn’t just for the newly baptized

I’m headed south for the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress on Thursday. If you’ve never been, it is an experience like no other. The Congress draws more than 40,000 participants who come to hear speakers from all over the world. Despite the name, the Congress is not limited to religious education themes. There are many workshops on liturgy, social justice, parenting, ethics, Scripture, and parish leadership. I’m hoping to find some insightful ideas about the catechumenate, but the offerings there look a little sparse this year. Fr. Ray Kemp is leading a workshop titled “Preparing Pastoral Preaching that is Pointed, Prayerful and Purposeful,” which is listed as a catechumenate offering. I’ll wander by there and try not to sit in the front row if he is going to be using all those “P” words.

If you’re in Los Angeles for the Congress, come visit me at the Twenty-Third Publications booth. Otherwise, I’ll see you here when I return next week.

What do I wear?! That’s a question I get often when I’m planning liturgies. Whether it’s the confirmation candidate, the newly-ordained, or even the bishop, himself, we have a natural concern over what to wear.

The baptismal rite in the RCIA gives us at least one answer: Put on Christ. Therefore we physically clothe the newly baptized with a white garment. As we do so, we say them:

You have become a new creation
and have clothed yourselves in Christ.
Receive this baptismal garment
and bring it unstained to the judgment seat
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
so that you may have everlasting life. (RCIA, #229)

This white garment should then be:

• white (although another color may be used according to local custom, cf. RCIA, #229)
• unstained
• dignified
• fitting to the person’s height and size
• preferably new
• preferably theirs to keep.

It should not be:

• stained
• dingy or ragged
• wrinkled
• flimsy or small
• a dalmatic (vestment worn by a deacon)
• a chasuble (vestment worn by a priest).

Nor should you add a stole to the garment. This and the last two items above are reserved for the ordained. (Read what the United States bishops say about the baptismal garment.)

One option is to sew your own garments for your elect. This can be a ministry of the parish and a creative way to involve more people in the ministry of initiation. Invite especially the homebound who have sewing skills and those who prefer to serve “behind the scenes.”

A simple and elegant pattern for a baptismal garment can be found in the appendix of The Three Days: Parish Prayer in the Paschal Triduum, by Gabe Huck (Liturgy Training Publications, 1992). You can also purchase a pattern from the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Syracuse here.

Other options can be to gift each neophyte with an alb, the common ritual garment used by any baptized minister. (“Alb” comes from the Latin word, alba, which means “white.” The alb is worn by any liturgical minister, from the altar servers all the way up to the bishop, and serves as a reminder of baptism.) This would be an appropriate gift from the godparents, parish, and catechumenate team. A white choir robe can also work. An alternative to a full-length alb or choir robe, and a less expensive option, would be a surplice (without the cassock), such as this example.

If you sew your own baptismal garments or purchase special garments for your neophytes, send us your best pictures and we’ll post them up here.

I need your help. I’m currently writing a comprehensive guide to the catechumenate for parish RCIA teams. And I’m stuck trying to think of a name for it. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Do any of the titles strike you? Or do you have another suggestion? I’d love to know what you think.

John Allen Jr., over at NCR Café, makes the point that, while local newspapers cover things as routine as city council meetings and high school sports events, they seldom report the powerful faith stories that take place in our churches every week. Using the Lexis-Nexis database, which indexes virtually all major print and broadcast media outlets in the English language, he ran a search under the keywords “cathedral” and “Catholic” for the week of January 3-10, 2007.

Recall that Jan. 3-10, the period of time under examination here, fell during one of the most crucial liturgical and spiritual points of the year: just after Christmas and New Year’s, with the Feast of the Epiphany smack dab in the middle. Yet not one of these stories (or the 20 or so other pieces that I didn’t list) made any reference to that activity. There was nothing about how a local homilist had framed the meaning of Epiphany; nothing about the spiritual significance of the Incarnation for contemporary Christians; nothing about the prayer intentions local Catholics brought to the liturgy for the New Year; nothing about how Catholic schools or CCD programs had prepared young people for the spiritual dimension of the holidays. Nothing, in short, about the routine pastoral and spiritual life of the church as it’s reflected in our cathedrals and other local faith communities.

This is not, he assures us, because Catholics have nothing to say that would interest the secular media. He writes:

Every RCIA director in this country has stories to tell of that remarkable convert whose life is the stuff of a Hollywood screenplay….

Incredible drama unfolds in cathedrals [and churches] every day; indeed, it would be stunning if this were not the case. Religion is where people bring their deepest fears, their highest hopes, their most intense passions—it’s the Coliseum of the conscience, the arena in which the universal human struggle between sin and redemption, between disgrace and new grace, plays itself out.

I’d even suggest that these stories are not being told well enough in our own diocesan newspapers.

So what stories do you have? And how are you telling them? E-mail them to me at nick[at]teamrcia[dot]com, and I’ll post some here. And e-mail them to your diocesan and town newspapers.

Click here to read Allen’s entire post. (You have to scroll down a bit.)

QCan you take RCIA classes online?

A“RCIA” is an acronym for “Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.” It is first of all a rite and therefore cannot be done online.

Sometimes we think of becoming a Christian as simply a matter of making an intellectual assent to a body of beliefs. This notion leads us to the understanding that we need to be instructed in a school-like structure about Christianity just as we might be instructed about mathematics. While there is an important intellectual component to Christianity, becoming a Christian is much more about practicing a counter-cultural lifestyle. The early Church called it “The Way.” One learns to live as a Christian by living with and imitating other Christians. That cannot be done online, just as learning to play baseball or learning to be a member of an orchestra cannot be done online. You have to be there.

Imagine this announcement in your parish. “Next Sunday we are going to celebrate the Rite of Acceptance with several catechumens.” Now in your mind’s eye, look out at the assembly. Is there a collective eye-roll? Or are they whipping out their Blackberries to cancel golf games and trips to see Grandma so they can be present at the liturgy?

The difference between a catechumenal rite that makes the primary minister—the baptized faithful—want to flee and one that serves as a conversion experience for the whole parish is rehearsal. The rites are powerful. You know that. But if you don’t work at doing them well, the assembly will only find them burdensome.

There are two steps to the rehearsal: Your own preparation and the preparation of the other ministers. Let’s start with you.

Getting ready to rehearse
I once asked a gathering of RCIA teams how many of them had read the Rite of Acceptance. One hand went up. It seems obvious to say, but you have to read the rite in order to do it well. And there is a method to reading the rite. A rite is an event, not just words on paper. So you need to read it the way you would read a play if you were a director. As the director, the first thing you need to know is the purpose of the rite.

That’s easy, right? Well, yes and no. If I asked you the purpose of the Rite of Acceptance, what would you say? And how would you know for sure that you are right? Maybe it’s not as easy as you first thought. But finding the answers to such questions—for the Rite of Acceptance or any rite of the church—is easy. Every rite has a pastoral introduction. So your first step is to read the pastoral introduction to the rite. From that you will learn the theological intent of the church and how the church intends for the rite to be celebrated.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is going to shock you. I don’t like to do it, but somebody has to tell you. There are a few of you out there who are “doing the RCIA” without having read the book!

What book? The RCIA. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. The book.

How people learn how to do the rite
So if you haven’t read the book, how do you know what to do? Here are the top six answers people give. (Okay, I don’t really know if these are the top six, but they are the ones I hear all the time.)

1. Gloria taught me. (Gloria is the former RCIA team coordinator or DRE or Very Important Person in the parish.)
2. Father taught me. (See “Gloria” above.)
3. I went to a workshop.
4. I read a book by a Very Important Person.
5. I read a magazine article by a Very Important Person who didn’t have time to write a whole book.
6. I went through the RCIA myself, and I just do what they did to me.

Now, again, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but relying on Gloria (or any of the other resources on the list) is not enough. How do you know Gloria was implementing the full vision of the rite? How do you know if she ever read the book? How do you know if what she was doing is really what the rite (the church) asks us to do? Only one way. Gotta read the book!

Why people don’t read the RCIA
So then, let’s look at the top six reasons most catechumenate team members have not read the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

1. It’s really long and boring.
2. That’s it. There are no more reasons.

I get that. I’m sorry it’s long and boring. I wish somebody would write a “plain English” version of it. But you still have to read it. Here’s why.

1. Reading the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the only way to understand the big picture.

This is a big deal. The RCIA process is meant to help people through a profound conversion experience. It is the most important thing that will ever happen to them. It’s more important than getting married. It’s more important than having a baby. It’s more important than losing your job. It’s more important than losing a loved one. “Conversion” means meeting Jesus for the first time and giving your life over to the mission of the Gospel. Everything else in life is…well, everything else. So if it is that big of a deal, all of us who serve as catechumenate ministers have to be committed to understanding as much as we can about how the process works. And there is only one way to do that. You gotta read the book.

2. Reading the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the only way to understand the small picture.

One reason the RCIA is “really long and boring” (besides the lack of a good editor) is there is no “one size fits all” conversion process. Each person is different and each faith journey is different. Catechumenate teams have to be flexible and versatile in adapting the rite to the specific needs of each individual. There is only one way to know what all the possible variations and adaptations are. You gotta read the book.

3. Reading the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the only way to speak with authority.

If you have spent any time at all in initiation ministry, you have probably been challenged about something you are doing. Someone doesn’t think he or she needs to come to all the sessions. Someone on the staff, maybe the pastor, doesn’t think all the steps of the rite are necessary. Someone on the team thinks we are imposing too much on the initiates. Someone thinks this is all fine and good for people over 18 but it doesn’t apply to children. How do you stand your ground if your source of authority is “some workshop I went to last year”? In order to speak with the voice of the church and to ensure the best possible pastoral practice in your parish, you gotta read the book.

4. Reading the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the only way to be able to train new team members.

Right off the bat, you want to empower the members of the catechumenate team to understand the vision of the church and to be able to implement the fullness of that vision in your parish. Only one way to do that. (Fill in blank here.) You _____ ____ ___ ____.

5. Reading the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the only way to remember what you forgot.

I have read my copy of the rite so many times the cover fell off. I got my current copy almost 20 years ago, and I’m still reading it. Every time I read it, I see something or remember something that hadn’t stuck in my head before. Now, those of you that have more brain cells than I (which is most of you) won’t miss or forget as much as I do. But you will miss some things and forget some things nonetheless. In order to really absorb the subtleties, fine points, and beauty of the rite, you need to read it. Lots.

6. Reading the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the only way to get me and people like me to stop bugging you.

I don’t want to bug you. I really don’t. I know you are busy. But think of this as a discipline. Like playing the piano. Or daily prayer. This ministry is something we were called to do, and part of the call is self-sacrifice. Let’s just put on your calendar a 15 minute time slot everyday when you will sit down in a comfortable chair with a nice cup of tea and read a page or two of the rite. For now, let’s just say you are committing to reading the introduction and Part I: Christian Initiation of Adults. In my version of the rite, that’s 152 pages. If you read two pages a day, that’s about 11 weeks. You have to read the small red type too, so no cheating. But some pages are mostly blank so that makes up for it. You can write notes on those pages.

I can help. E-mail me
Once you start reading it, I’ll bet you won’t find it as boring as you thought. Some parts are really, really exciting. Even so, some parts are also really, really confusing. It’s like my high school chemistry text book in places. I had to read and re-read some paragraphs to get it. If you hit one of those spots and need some help, e-mail me. I’ll be glad to help out. And if I can’t help, I’ll find someone who can. Good luck. Let me know how it goes. (If you don’t have a copy, click here to order one.)

QI’m trying to find some sort of brochure or flyer to be able to hand out to anyone who’s interested, to explain what RCIA is. Do you know where I could find something?

ASt. Anthony Messenger Press publishes a “Catholic Update” that is just the thing you are looking for. It is titled “An New Look at the RCIA,” and it is written by Rita Burns Senseman. Rita is a terrific writer and knows just about everything there is to know about RCIA. Click here for more info.

For some handouts that are a little more in-depth, maybe for the team, you might want to check out the “Seek the Living God” series by J. Michael McMahon. You can see a sample here.

Also take a look at “How Does a Person Become Catholic” from Liturgy Training Publications.

Finally, check out this summary I wrote, posted here.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

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.]