It was early May that year when my office phone rang. The woman calling was so excited to tell me about how the Easter Vigil celebration had triggered something in her—a realization that she was missing something in her own life. But It was the sight of the joyous “people all dressed in those white …
“When do your classes start?” For our seekers, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable question. After all, this is our fault. We have taught them these words so this is how they see the initiation process — take some classes and splash, now you’re a Catholic. But to my ears this question is a reminder …
Is your RCIA open all year-round? The words we use are important
What is more important for your catechumens and candidates—attending a catechetical session or attending a parish event? And let me ask a follow-up question—at which occasion does catechesis happen? Let’s start with the second question because that answer is going to inform the answer to the first. Catechesis happens at both occasions. For far too …
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Making room for parish events
There is a story about an old fish that swims near a couple of teenage fish. As he passes by, he says, “Hey guys, how’s the water?” And then, as the older fish swims away, one of the young fish says to the other, “What’s water?” Trying to describe water to a fish is a …
As we approach the fall those who are students or parents of students understand the “back to school” nature of our lives. For better or for ill, such is the rhythm for many of our parishes and ministries. For many years, and even to today, I read any number of bulletin announcements that tell us …
Is your catechumenate open all year-round? What does year-round mean?
Shortly after I moved to California in 1992, there was a story in the local paper about a woman who landed at the airport thinking she was in San Jose, Costa Rica. She took a taxi to her hotel, went to bed, and only realized the next morning at breakfast that she was in San …
How do you know if your seekers are ready for the next step in the catechumenate process?
“How can we grow in our capacity to live in full the liturgical action?” asks Pope Francis in his June 29 apostolic letter on liturgical formation. “How do we continue to let ourselves be amazed at what happens in the celebration under our very eyes?” (31). I think this may be the most important question …
The first step in catechumenate formation is to recover our “capacity for symbol”
In both the current translation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and in the proposed new translation, the phrase “a priori” is left in its original Latin state. Nothing, therefore, can be settled a priori. (RCIA 76)So nothing can be laid down a priori. (OCIA 76) I suspect it was not translated because …
One Latin phrase that was not translated in the initiation rites
We recently received an e-mail from someone who is working in a rural mission area. Much of her work is focused on sacramental preparation, including the preparation of inquirers and catechumens. When she arrived, she found copies of a text that is often used in the United States for “RCIA classes.” She wrote, “There is …
When I was 34, I moved from the Midwest to San Jose, California. That experience was a huge culture shift for me. It is difficult, however, to describe the depths and nuances of that shift. Culture is mostly invisible to the people who are “native” to it. One way to define culture is to say …
