“Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior?” I did not immediately realize the young man on the sidewalk was talking to me. “If you died today, do you know for sure you would go to heaven?” he asked as I was about to pass by. He mistook my confusion for interest […]
What is evangelization that is not weird?
As we approach the beginning of Lent, it is a good time to think about how we teach the catechumens to pray. The best way, of course, is by example. So here is a list of suggestions for deepening our prayer lives this Lent. Pray at a set time Make an appointment with yourself to
17 best prayer practices for RCIA team members
Tired of being cooped up and quarantined for more than a year, Diana and I went on a road trip across the United States just after we got our COVID vaccines. We saw state capitals where tour guides would explain to us about the different kinds of marble, how the dome was constructed, and what
Are we geeky enough about the catechumenate?
When the current translation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults was promulgated in 1988, we might not have been as prepared as we need to be. Because we weren’t quite ready, many misinterpretations and misapplications of the rite began to flourish. The biggest difficulty is that the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
Is your parish ready for the new translation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults?
In a recent Community Chat, TeamRCIA discussed the many ways the baptismal priesthood is the primary agent of formation for the inquirers, catechumens, elect, and baptized candidates. There were a lot of questions about where to find resources to help parishioners “do Lent” in such a way that they also accompany the seekers on their
Initiation team resources for Lent, Triduum and the Easter Season
At our 2021 year-end review meeting for TeamRCIA, we discovered a surprising fact about millennials. When we started TeamRCIA in 2007, millennials were barely a thing. That year, the oldest of them was in their mid-20s. Today, the youngest of them is in their mid-20s and the elders are just reaching their 40s. What have
Do you have millennials on your catechumenate team?
A couple of weeks ago, we hosted an online Community Chat on the topic of sponsors in the catechumenate process. We had a terrific conversation and covered a lot of ground. Several questions kept coming up that seemed to me to be the same question being asked in different ways. I want to write about
Be sure your sponsors have what it takes
For a few weeks now, we have been exploring the ministry of catechist and specifically what the Directory for Catechesis calls for in the formation of catechists. If you have read the entire series—and especially if you read the sections of the Directory upon which I based the articles in the series—you may wonder who
The journey toward becoming an RCIA catechist
If you have been following along in this series on the ministry of catechist, you will know that we have most recently been looking at what the Directory for Catechesis identifies as the three dimensions of formation for catechists: We have arrived at the final dimension, savoir-faire. Savoir-faire is one of those terms that I
Five attitudes necessary for your RCIA team’s savoir-faire
After Pope Francis instituted a new ministry of catechist, we began looking at what that might mean for RCIA teams. Earlier, we looked at why is the new ministry of catechist important and then at the identity of the catechist as witness, mystagogue, and accompanier. In this post, I want to discuss how we get
What RCIA teams need to know about how catechists are formed
