New Year or All Year Round …
I agree with Martin, (May 19 2008) that one of the factors that hinders the progression of RCIA is a cloak of secrecy, perpetrated by some in leadership roles. To overcome this, I suggest it requires an appreciation by the team of the scope of adult initiation, as well as a good understanding of the rite, so as to appreciate the essential role of the community.
For example if you explore the requirements of RCIA #4,
‘The initiation of catechumens is a gradual process that takes place
within the community of the faithful. … the faithful provide an example…’
The following might be useful questions to ask:
• In what ways do we inform the parish of the ongoing RCIA process?
• Is everyone aware that RCIA is part of this parish?
• Do the parishioners acknowledge their own responsibility to those being initiated?
• Do they recognise the candidates, and the new catholics?
Next time you are at mass or at a parish gathering, do a straw poll and ask what is known about RCIA and how it occurs in your parish.
If the answers to the above are less than satisfactory, why not have a brain storming session with your team on how to publicise and promote RCIA. You could have an open meeting, or invite specific parish groups to consider practical ways, that the faithful can ‘provide an example’ of what being Christian means. Such contact is essential to the whole initiation process (see #9, #75.2).
This leads me to Martin’s point about using this time to have a “new year resolution”. My resolution would be to introduce year-round RCIA, for that is the key to making it an ongoing gradual process, which involves the whole parish.
‘During the period of evangelisation and precatechumenate…. Christ’s
message is made known by word and deed…(the people) welcome them
into their homes, into personal conversation, and into community gatherings’ #9.1
So from the first, the enquirer is in contact with the community. That same community will be present during the liturgical rites (#9.2) and ongoing through to the post-baptismal Mystagogy. Just as the community experience the liturgical seasons of ordinary time, advent, lent, easter, Pentecost, the liturgical year provides the same cycle of spiritual growth for those experiencing adult initiation.
Year round catechumenate brings its own challenges. How to introduce it, manpower, a substantial change to the school year model, a change of mindset away from ‘instruction’.
Some suggestions:-
• Manpower: use it as an opening to invite new parishioners to become involved, in hospitality, formation, sponsors, etc.
• Agree a holiday rota, avoiding those with school age children.
• Introduce it this summer, as a fortnightly or 3 weekly event and gradually extend it over the year, to the same frequency as usual RCIA sessions.
• Have different teams for different parts of the process. It is demanding to attend week after week. Catechists need a break to continue their own formation, and opportunity to discuss and experience other models.
• Offer a general invitation to the parish to come along to the gatherings: a notice in the parish newsletter that all are welcome, indicating discussion will be around the Sunday lectionary, can be less daunting than offering a fixed topic where cradle catholics may think their ‘knowledge’ will be tested.
• Using the lectionary, and following the liturgical year, makes it easier for team members to drop in and out of the process, than being ‘topic-based’.
• Announce the year-round process: from the pulpit (shows clergy support), the parish newsletter, notice board, circulate to other parish groups.
• Ask the parish to pray for its implementation, in the bidding prayers, prayer groups etc.
• Evaluate, reassess, and discuss as a team - ask members to journal the process- it is wonderful to read back and see how positive a change has been, as this is often underestimated while you’re experiencing it.
• Use this site to pass on your experience, what works, what can be avoided.
Adopting a year round catechumenate will make RCIA more widely known and integrated in parish life, especially as the liturgical rites come to be celebrated in the Sunday mass, and the community is kept informed about catechumens.
The increase in team members (encouraged by requiring shorter periods of commitment ) will mean you are better placed to cater for the different stages of the catechumenate and to differentiate between the unbaptised and baptised.
Ordinary RCIA
If the Rites of Initiation have a 'new year' perhaps it is now. Back in the cycle of Ordinary Time; Easter is now a memory.
One of the difficulties of RCIA is that feeling we could always be more whether it is celebrating more of the rites, providing a year-round catechumenate, identifying sponsors, distinguishing between catechumens and the baptised — and the list could go on.
One of the dangers of this is that it can create a 'checklist of smugness' — 'did you hear he said programme doesn't everybody know that it's a process'. My guess is that this is one of reasons that the Rite has not yet found its proper place within the Church in England and Wales. It is that we, the practitioners, can give the impression that it is a complex and secret mystery, a true 'disciplina arcana', which other mere mortals may never attain. This is not to say that it isn't complex but at its heart it requires commitment to a vision of Church, a Church of mission which meets people where they are and invites them to share a journey.
Before this gets too down hearted it is worth noting some basic signs of life:
- diocesan Rites of Election are steadily growing in numbers present
- the Easter Vigil is at the heart of initiation
- there is a gradual shift towards welcoming the unbaptised, something which we may not have conceived 20 years ago.
That's on a large scale you may have other things you would add from your own experience.
An interesting book I read in the last year was Real Stories of Christian Initiation published by Liturgical Press. It tells the story of five parishes in the States where the authors stay with the RCIA group over a year. The parishes though in the same area are quite diverse in their approach and an impression it corrects is that in the US there are many wonderful parishes doing a wonderful RCIA. Here are 5 ordinary parishes doing there best; none of them were perfect (it might even inspire the 'checklist of smugness' in places!). What makes the book interesting though is that these are 'real stories'. Sometimes what we need is not to be told how to do something but to see that it is possible. This was particularly true about the parish that offered what is referred to as the '3 ring circus' — recognising that the needs of enquirers, catechumens and the elect are different and have to be met in different approaches.
It was question of the dismissal of catechumens that I found most surprising. All five of the parishes dismissed their catechumens after the Liturgy of the Word even if this meant only during Advent and Lent. This was another example of seeing that it is possible. More than that was the implication that this was normative practice — a necessary part of RCIA — if you ain't dismissing you ain't doing RCIA. In England and Wales my impression is that for the majority of parishes (though not all) dismissal of the catechumens is paragraph quickly passed over as 'complex' and not how we do things here.
Throughout this entry I have mentioned aspects of the Rite that make it what it is: not just dismissal but distinguishing between catechumens and the baptised, responding to the needs of enquirers when they come etc. There are probably many others my question is which one might you pick as your 'new year's resolution'. Whatever it is it may take a year to develop: understanding as team why and working what might be involved, maybe finding new people or communicating with others. Through such a process you will grow and you will better respond to the needs of those who come to you — the journey will be richer as you discover new paths.
An Outpouring of Generosity
A conversion moment took place in Lourdes a number of years ago. I was there with a group of young people from St Bernadette’s Parish in Scunthorpe and our pilgrimage coincided with a Diocesan pilgrimage from my home county Kerry. My mother Julie was one of the pilgrims. The first evening I went down to her hotel to have a chat. As I came into the front room of the hotel I saw Julie and another woman talking thirteen to the dozen, fully animated and obviously fully at home with one another. When I came up to them I was taken aback because my mother was speaking English and the other woman speaking Spanish. When we were alone I said to Julie “you don’t speak Spanish”. She looked at me as if was totally stupid and said. “What’s that got to do with it? We were talking about our families and showing pictures of our children to one another. What’s language got to do with it.” It was a Pentecost moment. Language was not a barrier, a spirit of openness and care for one another overcame apparent difference. What was held in common was greater than what might separate. It just took people of deep humanity and spirit to take the risk of reaching out to the other.
Pentecost is a many layered feast. It has deep roots which lie in the Jewish celebration of the feast of Weeks (Shavuoth), remembering the giving of the Torah (the Law) to Moses at Mount Sinai. It is also a feast of celebrating the gift of the first fruits of harvest, a new beginning with the sense of jumping for joy and entering into the dance of plenty along with the birth of the people of the Law of Moses. It is little wonder that the early Church community celebrated this day, the new first day of the Lord– 50 days (7 weeks + 1) after Easter as the birth of the new community of Jesus of Nazareth. A celebration full of joy (drunk with joy no less) and new possibilities uniting the rich diversity of many peoples ‘from every nation under heaven’ in one great moment of unity celebrating the richness of different languages and cultures in an experience of common humanity and grace.
Behind the story of the outpouring of the Spirit lies the story of the Tower of Babel with its emphasis on humankind’s tendency towards hubris:- The desire to be our own god, along with the tendency towards uniformity and conformity. In the story all speak the same language and attempt to reach beyond ourselves, to the very heavens. At Pentecost Hubris and the desire for power is turned totally upside down. Diversity of language and culture become a sign of the deeper unity of humanity under God. A God who is lavish in his creation who in the words of the poet Brendan Kennelly “goes about his work, Determined to hold on to nothing. Embarrasses at the prospect of possession, He distributes leaves to the wind, And lets them pitch and leap like boys, Capering out of their skin. Pictures are thrown behind hedges, Poems skitter backwards over cliffs, There is is a loaf of bread on Derek’s threshold, And we will never know who put it there.”
Pentecost is a great feast of the outpouring of the Spirit of God. It warns against the tendency to uniformity and conformity while celebrating the rich diversity of God’s creation. It is an invitation for us to share in that lavish generosity, to let go for the good of others, to be big of heart and to give freely of our gifts and talents. A launch pad for a life of discipleship:- walking confidently and courageously with the One who is with us to the end of time.
Having met together, they asked ‘Has the time come?’
Last night we held our last session for two candidates who are being received into full communion on Pentecost Sunday. Reflecting together on the readings for the Ascension, 'has the time come', we talked together about the last few months, and our attempt as a team guiding the RCIA to be true to the spirit of the ritual text, based on Acts 15:28, that ' no greater burden than necessary is required for the establishment of communion and unity', recognising that Peter and Jane have been on the road for a long time before they knocked at our door.
We are a small rural parish, with consequent limited resources. Jane and Peter have joined our weekly catechumenal sessions fairly regularly over the last 6 months - from the start, we explained the difference between them and our catechumen - the quantum leap, Baptism! In the group they have been encouraged to raise anything they wanted, and have entered fully into gospel-based sharing and the doctrinal and spiritual content that has emerged, adding great richness to our gathering. Each one has had separate opportunities to meet with our PP, their sponsors and catechist, for any personal issues to be raised. Every Sunday they have been coming to Mass, getting to know people, and growing in their experience of Catholic liturgy and life, including our justice and peace projects. We reflected long and hard on the appropriate moment for reception, and decided against using any form of combined rite at the Easter Vigil - 'anything that would equate candidates for reception with those who are catechumens is to be absolutely avoided'. (RCIA 391 UK) - choosing rather to go with the very simple ceremony of the Rite of Reception within Mass. After the homily the candidate joins the gathered faithful in reciting the Creed, demonstrating their existing baptismal faith, and adding a straightforward and profound statement at the end: I believe all that the Catholic church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God.' The words of the celebrant are warm 'The Lord receives you into the Catholic Church. His loving kindness led you here.... and after anointing with the oil of chrism, eh takes their hands into his own as a sign of friendship and welcome, and the whole community are invited to greet them in a friendly manner. The mass continues and they will come to be one with us at the table for the first time.
Given their personal circumstances, their baptism!, their journies on the Christian path so far, we felt that this length of catechetical formation was appropriate. It has been gradual, non-pressurised, and in the process, we as a community have also become more self-aware, hopefully demonstrating a little more humility, appreciating in Peter and Jane the spiritual gifts they bring to us. Aren't we all on the road of continuing conversion to Christ! Our journey with these candidates has opened us to fresh promptings of the Spirit. For Jane and Peter, 'the time has come'. We prayed for one another last night ' for the 'spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed... may he enlighted the eyes of our minds so that we can see what hope his call holds for us.' May next Sunday, in our simple ritual of Reception, express the joy of finding one another on the way.