This question shapes the entire catechumenate process. Find out why.

1. What do you ask of God’s church? The first question in the RCIA
2. Six signs of readiness for the Rite of Acceptance
3. Five key questions to ask RCIA inquirers
4. Three easy ways to evangelize
5. Are you overloading the RCIA “boat”?
6. Don’t settle for a “pretty good” RCIA process

In our RCIA groups, we often have people at very different levels of faith. The General Directory for Catechesis identifies three levels. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is really concerned only about the first two levels: initial proclamation and initiatory catechesis. However, we often have very many people in our RCIA groups who are require the third level—ongoing or postbaptismal catechesis.

No matter which level people are at, we all have a single purpose when it comes to catechesis:

The definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch, but also in communion and intimacy, with Jesus Christ. (Pope John Paul II, On Catechesis in Our Time, 5)

You may have heard that before. It is a frequently quoted statement. Like all things familiar, the impact can sometimes be dulled with repetition. So try and read the pope’s words again as though you are reading it for the first time. And as you are reading, try to think about everything the pope means in this context by “communion,” “intimacy,” and “Jesus Christ.”

Communion

When Catholics hear the word “communion,” we tend to think of Eucharist and sharing in communion at Mass. And the pope certainly means that in this context. But he also means “communion” in the broader sense. That is, when we are in communion with Jesus Christ, we are in a shared union, a common oneness. It is part of the mystery of Christ that we are able to live in him and that he lives in us.

But that “living in” is not just what’s going on in my life today. It is also everything that went on in Jesus’ life during his life, passion, and death. And not only that, but everything that the evangelist John means when he says the Word was present “in the beginning.” Every thing that the Logos—the Son of God—is and has lived, throughout all time and all of the cosmos, lives in us. This is already accomplished. It is a done deal. What remains is for us to grow more deeply aware of this reality and conform our lives to it more completely, day by day. That is what it means to be “in communion…with Jesus Christ.”

Intimacy

“Intimacy” is an important phrase here. When you think of your intimate relationships, who comes to mind? Your spouse for sure. Your children. Perhaps your parents. Some of us have a friend with whom we’re intimate. A few of us might even have two such friends. I think it’s less common to have three or more friends we would consider “intimates.” But you might be the exception. Perhaps you have several intimate friends. Even the most open and giving people among us, however, have a limited, small number of people in our lives with whom we would say we are truly intimate. The pope, of course, says that Jesus Christ should be on that small list. As disciples, we must be intimate with Christ.

Jesus Christ

As a child, I had a storybook, almost cartoon-like image of Jesus. In adolescence, I needed a more complete, multidimensional relationship with the Lord. I began to think of Jesus as a friend—even a best friend. That was a step in the right direction, but it was still a little one-sided. My BFF Jesus was always happy, always agreeable, and amazingly, always thought just like me.

The complete context of “Jesus Christ” that the pope is talking about has to also include the real, tangible way in which anyone who was born after 33 AD experiences the fullness of the Risen Christ. And that is in the sacramental worship of the church. This is the head-smacking, breathtaking insight about the “definitive aim of catechesis.”

We are called to communion and intimacy not only with our spouse and best friend. We are called to communion and intimacy with the entire, sacramental Body of Christ. That sacramental Body includes my childish image of Jesus and my adolescent image of Jesus. And it includes the consecrated bread and wine that become the Body and Blood of Christ. And it also includes everyone who shares in the communion of the that Body and Blood. It includes the church, which is the manifestation of Christ.

That’s a whole lot of communion and intimacy

The aim of catechesis then, is to train us in a lifestyle of intimacy with billions of our brothers and sisters in Christ. This striving for intimacy is not to expand our network of best friends. Rather it is to learn who Christ truly is in all the many dimensions of that reality. It is a challenging task and one that will likely remain unfinished at our deaths. It is, nevertheless, the guiding aim for catechesis and for our lives as disciples.

Multiple levels of catechesis

As you know, intimacy is not a destination. It is a process. So no matter what level of faith people are at, we can lead them to deeper intimacy with Christ. The intimacy-deepening process involves six steps, which we’ll look at in a future article. In the meantime, I’d be grateful if you took a moment to share your insights or wonderings about the idea of putting people into communion and intimacy with Christ.

1. Is your RCIA team catechizing at all the levels the church expects?
2. Six “best practices” for every RCIA catechist
3. Can an art docent help RCIA teams learn to catechize better?
4. The RCIA challenge of developing intimacy with Jesus—and my billion best friends

How do you know if your inquirers are ready to celebrate the Rite of Acceptance? The RCIA gives us some clear guidelines to help us discern. Discover what they are in this brief video.

1. What do you ask of God’s church? The first question in the RCIA
2. Six signs of readiness for the Rite of Acceptance
3. Five key questions to ask RCIA inquirers
4. Three easy ways to evangelize
5. Are you overloading the RCIA “boat”?
6. Don’t settle for a “pretty good” RCIA process

I recently saw a docent at the Art Institute in Chicago patiently explaining Georges Seurat’s masterpiece, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, to a grade school class. She obviously had a firm grasp of the facts about the painting—size, date painted, number of figures in the painting, number of years to complete—but the kids were bored.

I know nothing about Seurat, other than that he painted this painting. But if I could ask him why he painted it, I’m going to bet he would not say so that children could learn how long it took him to paint it. I’m going to bet his goal was to touch people’s hearts or make them see the world in a new way.

Become a better docent of the faith

Catechists are docents. Our challenge is to “explain” Jesus to people. We can do this like the museum docent, giving people all of the facts about Jesus. Or we can lead them deeper into the mystery of Jesus so he can touch their hearts and help them see the world in a new way.

Catechetical docents have an additional challenge. The art docent was only speaking to grade school kids. As catechists, however, we are often speaking to people with grade-school-level faith (or less), as well as true artists of the faith who creatively and passionately live the gospel every day.

What level is your RCIA group at?

How do we catechize a group that includes people at such different levels of faith?

Ideally, we would find ways to separate people into appropriate levels. However, that’s not always possible. For lots of reasons, we often have to make do with one group that includes people at very different places on their faith journey. When we have to do that, it helps to remember the three levels of catechesis.

1. initial proclamation
2. initiatory catechesis
3. ongoing catechesis

(See the links below for articles that describe the levels.)

As RCIA catechists, our first obligation is to those who require catechesis in the first two levels—initial proclamation and initiatory catechesis. These are the beginners in faith, and it is the mission of the initiation process to apprentice them in a Christian lifestyle.

Third-level catechesis

The reality is, however, that in many parishes, the majority of people in our processes require the third level of catechesis—ongoing or postbaptismal catechesis.

Think back to that art docent with the children. The children needed “initiatory catechesis” into the world of art. They were beginners. But look at the other people in the room. Some of them might be artists themselves. What would they need to go deeper into the “world” that Seurat was inviting them to? And how could the docent meet the needs of both levels at the same time?

What’s possible in our RCIA groups?

Or to shift to our context, how does a catechist lead a beginner in faith to a very basic encounter with the mystery of the Trinity while at the same time leading a lifelong Christian to a much deeper encounter with the mystery?

I think it is possible to help people at such different levels, in the same group, to have a meaningful encounter with the mystery of Christ. But it is not easy. It takes planning, focus, and discipline. We’ll look at some possible strategies in a future article.

Your thoughts?

In the meantime however, please share your ideas. What has worked for you in trying to catechize people at different levels of faith?

1. Is your RCIA team catechizing at all the levels the church expects?
2. Six “best practices” for every RCIA catechist
3. Can an art docent help RCIA teams learn to catechize better?
4. The RCIA challenge of developing intimacy with Jesus—and my billion best friends

Help your RCIA inquires create a plan for their conversion with these five, simple questions.

1. What do you ask of God’s church? The first question in the RCIA
2. Six signs of readiness for the Rite of Acceptance
3. Five key questions to ask RCIA inquirers
4. Three easy ways to evangelize
5. Are you overloading the RCIA “boat”?
6. Don’t settle for a “pretty good” RCIA process

When we engage in the art of catechesis, we can group people into three broad categories. First, there are those who know little or nothing about Jesus. Then there are those who recognize Jesus as the source of true peace and joy, but they do not know much more than that. Finally, there are those who have received a basic catechesis in the faith and have been initiated into Christian life. While these are not hard-and-fast distinctions, we can say that there are three levels of catechesis and that people move successively from one level to the next:

• initial proclamation
• initiatory catechesis
• ongoing catechesis

We looked at the first two levels in a previous article. In this article, I would like to look at the final level: ongoing catechesis.

Level 3: Ongoing catechesis

This “final” level of catechesis can be the most confusing. A newly baptized person who has only been a Christian for a matter of days is in this level. And so is Pope Benedict XVI. Ongoing catechesis is what the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults calls “postbaptismal catechesis.” The goal of postbaptismal catechesis is the same for both the neophyte and the pope and everyone in between—to fulfill the prayer of Jesus to the Father that we all become one in the life of the Trinity (see General Directory for Catechesis, 70).

The purpose of postbaptismal catechesis is the upbuilding the Christian community of faith.

The question we are faced with when we catechize, then, is not exactly what do I have to teach? Rather, we should ask, what do I have to teach this person to help him or her fulfill his or her unique role in the community of faith—his or her “vocation”? And at first, that can seem overwhelming. How can we possibly create a tailor-made catechetical process for every individual we encounter?

By ourselves, we cannot, of course. But catechesis is not exclusively the job of any one catechist. It is the job of the community of faith. The job of the catechist is not so much to teach the individual but to inspire the community of faith to become a learning community, focused on the praise and worship of the Father through Jesus Christ.

From that perspective, the General Directory for Catechesis lists six forms of ongoing catechesis that we would hope to find in every parish.

Scripture

The community of faith learns more about the word of God in every liturgy, which is a primary source for this form of catechesis. In addition, parishes might offer other opportunities for the study and exploration of Scripture.

Signs of the times

The community of faith is not isolated from the world. Following the model of the first apostles, we are always interpreting what is happening around us through the lens of the gospel. Note that this is not solely the work of the “social justice committee.” The entire community of faith is constantly working toward the restoration of God’s reign of peace and harmony.

Liturgy

The liturgy itself teaches. The prayers, gestures, songs, and the simple act of gathering itself all say something about who God is and how we are to act as God’s people. Pope John Paul II called the liturgy an “eminent kind of catechesis.”

Life experience

If someone is a living a Christian lifestyle, that life will be filled with moments of revelation. The work of God’s spirit will be evident in unlimited and illuminating ways. A very effective form of catechesis is simply to notice—as an individual or as a community—where God has passed recently.

Spiritual practices

To live a Christian lifestyle is not easy. It requires discipline and practice. When we engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, penance, and works of mercy, we learn more about ourselves as people of faith.

Theological instruction

The General Directory for Catechesis lists this form last, and we have to wonder why that is. For the new catechist, and even for a few of us veterans, it is the form we often think of first. However, the General Directory for Catechesis also calls this form “perfective catechesis.” It seems to me we have to be fully engaged in all the previous forms of catechesis before we can “perfect” our understanding of God as the source hope and joy. In a sense, we have to spend a lot of time learning who God is and who I am in relation to God before we can learn why and God is.

If our parish communities are actively practicing these six forms of catechesis, we will come very close to fulfilling Jesus’ prayer that we all become one in the life of the Trinity.

1. Is your RCIA team catechizing at all the levels the church expects?
2. Six “best practices” for every RCIA catechist
3. Can an art docent help RCIA teams learn to catechize better?
4. The RCIA challenge of developing intimacy with Jesus—and my billion best friends

Years ago, an RCIA team I was on encountered a woman who did not know that Jesus was the Son of God. And she had no understanding at all of the Holy Spirit. Not all that unusual, is it? That same year, however, a Methodist man asked us about becoming Catholic. He was a good and faithful Christian. He knew Scripture better than many of us Catholics, he could speak intelligently about the Trinity, he knew the cycle of the liturgical year, and he had been participating in Sunday Mass for the last 15 years—ever since he’d married his Catholic wife.

These two seekers both found themselves in a catechetical process that I and another catechist were leading that year. And we had a half-dozen other folks who fell somewhere between the “uncatechized” and “catechized” seekers. The challenge we faced was how to shape a catechetical process that would accommodate the needs of people who were at very different places on their faith journey.

What does the church expect of RCIA catechists?

The first question my fellow catechist and I asked ourselves was, what does the church expect? In an ideal world, what kind of catechesis would we be providing for these folks? A couple of years after we were asking that question, the Vatican published a document that would have been helpful in answering our question—the General Directory for Catechesis.

The General Directory for Catechesis offers a very helpful insight about the different levels of catechesis required for the initiation process. There are three. But, the directory itself says we cannot treat these three levels as “watertight” compartments. There is a blending among them, and no individual ever fits neatly and completely into a give level. Still, it is helpful to RCIA teams to understand the three levels of catechesis. We’ll look at the first two in this post.

Level 1: Primary proclamation

The directory says:

Primary proclamation is addressed to non-believers and those living in religious indifference. Its functions are to proclaim the Gospel and to call to conversion. (61)

While not putting her into a watertight box, we might say that the woman who did not know that Jesus was the Son of God needed primary proclamation. She wanted to be a believer; she just wasn’t clear about what she was believing in. Someone had already proclaimed the gospel to her, at least enough to get her to show up at our parish. But she still needed a little more evangelization to move her fully to the next level of catechesis.

Level 2: Initiatory catechesis

Regarding the second level, initiatory catechesis, the directory says:

The link uniting catechesis and Baptism is true profession of faith, which is at once an element inherent in this sacrament and the goal of catechesis. The aim of catechetical activity consists in precisely this: to encourage a living, explicit and fruitful profession of faith. (66)

The goal for our RCIA team had to be to provide our uncatechized seeker with a very basic understanding what it means to profess faith in the Risen Christ. We did not need to bring her to the level of our Methodist seeker in order for her to be initiated. We simply needed to provide for her a full understanding of what it meant to both believe in and live the gospel. One we were sure she knew what she would be saying yes to, we would be able to initiate her into the faith.

Initiatory catechesis is addressed to:

• those who have been converted to Jesus
• those who require a basic apprenticeship in living a Christian lifestyle
• those who have not yet grasped “the most fundamental certainties of the faith" (GDC 67)

So once the seeker has mastered the basics, what next? We’ll look at that in another post. In the meantime, please share your thoughts. Is your RCIA team accounting for the different levels of catechesis? What accommodations do you make among seekers who are at different levels? Please take two minutes to share your insights because it will help the rest of us become better catechists.

1. Is your RCIA team catechizing at all the levels the church expects?
2. Six “best practices” for every RCIA catechist
3. Can an art docent help RCIA teams learn to catechize better?
4. The RCIA challenge of developing intimacy with Jesus—and my billion best friends

The period of the precatechumenate is all about evangelization. Don’t send seekers away, asking them to come back later. Use these simple skills to engage them immediately.

1. What do you ask of God’s church? The first question in the RCIA
2. Six signs of readiness for the Rite of Acceptance
3. Five key questions to ask RCIA inquirers
4. Three easy ways to evangelize
5. Are you overloading the RCIA “boat”?
6. Don’t settle for a “pretty good” RCIA process

Sunday mornings were a whirlwind of drama when I was a kid. My mother, a single parent, was like a hen trying to round up her uncooperative chicks to get us to Mass each week. I think of those days when I read in the RCIA, “The Church, like a mother, helps the catechumens on their journey by suitable liturgical rites” (75.3).

This seems to me to be an excellent job description for RCIA sponsors: Be a mother hen, especially about liturgy.

Five essential liturgical tasks for RCIA sponsors

The sponsors should be the people primarily responsible for the full, conscious, and active participation of the catechumens in the liturgy. Here are just a few things sponsors need to attend to:

• Make sure the catechumens are at Mass every Sunday
• Encourage the catechumens to pray over the readings before coming to Mass
• Teach the catechumens the people’s responses in the liturgy
• Set an example for the catechumens by singing the opening song and the other sung parts of the Mass
• Teach the catechumens the appropriate postures and gestures and the reasons for those postures and gestures

Beyond Sunday

In addition, the sponsors can help the catechumens learn about the flow of the liturgical year by explaining to them the changes in colors and environment in the church. Sponsors might also help the catechumens learn about liturgies beyond Sunday Mass by accompanying them to parish baptisms, weddings, anointings, funerals, and weekday Masses. I know that participating in Holy Day liturgies is falling out of fashion, but it is still an obligation for all Catholics. Sponsors should be diligent about participating in these liturgies and bringing their catechumens with them.

Bringing liturgy home

Sponsors might also help the catechumens celebrate the liturgies of the domestic church. Some areas to focus on would include:

• Morning prayer
• Prayer before meals
• Blessing prayer for specific occasions
• Intercessory prayer for family needs
• Prayer before bedtime

The RCIA sponsor’s most important task

Even more importantly however, is that the sponsors help the catechumens recognize the person of Jesus Christ in all of these liturgical events. To do that, the sponsors must have an ongoing awareness of their own encounter with Christ in the liturgy. There is a tendency for some of us to focus on the Eucharist and specifically the sharing in communion as the time when we truly encounter Christ. The Eucharist, is of course, the premiere way in which we encounter Christ. But it is not the only way.

Since the catechumens are dismissed before the Eucharist, it will be important for the sponsors to help the catechumens recognize Christ in all the other aspects and forms of the church’s liturgy. By mentoring the catechumens in the fullest possible liturgical life they can have short of the Eucharist, the sponsors will be preparing catechumens for the day when they join with us fully at the Lord’s table.

What’s your story?

How do your sponsors assist in the mandate to help the catechumens on their liturgical journey? Please share your comments below so that others will benefit from your experience.

1. Why RCIA sponsors are like poultry
2. Do your RCIA sponsors know the single reason for Jesus’ death and resurrection?
3. Five essential elements of an RCIA sponsor’s job description
4. A simple plan for involving RCIA sponsors in providing a suitable catechesis
5. Are you asking your RCIA sponsors to sacrifice enough? A three-part job description
6. Seven ways AA sponsors can inspire RCIA sponsors
7. Spouses as sponsors in the RCIA process
8. 9 tasks for RCIA sponsors on Sunday
9. Who sponsors child catechumens?
10. How do you train sponsors for the RCIA?

One of the most challenging duties for sponsors is to model an apostolic lifestyle for the catechumens (see RCIA 75.4). Most sponsors live an apostolic lifestyle, but if you asked them to describe what that looked like or how they do it, they might have some difficulty.

Why an RCIA sponsor’s lifestyle is so important

Your role as an RCIA team member is to help the sponsors both live an apostolic lifestyle more intentionally and to be able to communicate the basics of that lifestyle to the catechumens. So let’s start with why living an apostolic lifestyle is important in the first place.

Jesus had a single mission. You know what that is, but sponsors might not be able to readily name it. You will want help them articulate that Jesus’ sole purpose was to bring people into the joy of belonging to God’s Kingdom. After his resurrection, Jesus handed on that singular mission to the apostles and the rest of the disciples. And the apostles handed it on to us. So it is crucial that the sponsors are very clear that their mission and the mission of the catechumens is to tell people about the great joy that awaits them in God’s Kingdom.

What Jesus meant by “Kingdom”

What exactly do we mean by the joy of God’s Kingdom? We mean what Jesus meant. Jesus said that the poor, the mournful, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted will all be blessed. They will all have the joy of the Kingdom (see Mt 5:1-12). Our job and the job of the catechumens is to bring that good news to all of these people who don’t know they can have such boundless joy.

How RCIA sponsors can live like an apostle

So how do we do that? How do the sponsors do that? How do they teach the catechumens to do that? We all do that by living the way the apostles lived. An apostolic lifestyle is characterized by radical liberation. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we now live free from all those things in the world that deprive us of joy. We are free from poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger, and persecution. Unfortunately, it is part of our human nature to believe in scarcity. We are fearful of not having enough, and we hoard our resources. We worry. We fret. Apostles don’t fret. Apostles are filled with gratitude for God’s abundant gifts. And because we have abundant gifts, we give gifts freely to those who have less.

In other words, the way to bring joy to a hungry person is to bring food. The way to bring joy to a persecuted person is to bring mercy. The way to bring joy to a mourning person is to bring laughter. We live an apostolic lifestyle by bringing real, tangible joy to those who need it most. We bring liberation from whatever is oppressive.

That’s part one—bring liberation. Part two is, we do so in the name of Christ. The message of liberation always has to be given in response to the liberation that Christ gave to us. Those who are oppressed and who we hope to serve should always know that Christ is source of the joy that motivates us.

What would happen if catechumens became apostles?

As we said, many sponsors are already living an apostolic lifestyle—a life of joy and freedom in Christ. But think what would happen if they were able to clearly identify their joy and if they were able to say how Christ had brought them that joy. Think what might happen if they were able to teach their catechumens how to find such radical joy in their own lives. And what might happen if the catechumens could learn from their sponsors how to bring that joy to others?

That’s our challenge as RCIA team members. We have to live lives of explicitly Christ-centered, joyful liberation and teach the sponsors how to do the same.

1. Why RCIA sponsors are like poultry
2. Do your RCIA sponsors know the single reason for Jesus’ death and resurrection?
3. Five essential elements of an RCIA sponsor’s job description
4. A simple plan for involving RCIA sponsors in providing a suitable catechesis
5. Are you asking your RCIA sponsors to sacrifice enough? A three-part job description
6. Seven ways AA sponsors can inspire RCIA sponsors
7. Spouses as sponsors in the RCIA process
8. 9 tasks for RCIA sponsors on Sunday
9. Who sponsors child catechumens?
10. How do you train sponsors for the RCIA?