Walking the Rite way

During the early part of this year we had talked increasingly about our hopes for future developments in implementing the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. We discussed wanting to begin year-long invitation opportunities for people who may wish to know more about living a Catholic Christian life.

Our other main area of concern was how to be much more faithful to including, or should it be allowing, the whole parish to take its due role in evangelisation and catechesis. That is, to “be always fully prepared in the pursuit of its apostolic vocation to give help to those who are searching for Christ”. Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, n9.  How do catechists, in the task of assisting an initiation process, avoid at best being the ‘yeast’ consciously working on behalf of the parish and at worst an exclusive group? We need to unveil more the role of parishioners as threshold companions.

If something like monthly opportunities to meet with, question and find welcome from catholics were to happen we had to involve all parishioners. Both objectives went hand in hand. We knew that perceptions and experience of RCIA could develop more with this process.

To begin with the discussion needed to be opened up for fresh dialogue…to start a ripple effect at least. Hence, parishioners representing some ministries, activities and interests, as well as different age groups were personally invited to come together to explore ways in which we could become an even more welcoming parish.

The Spirit of God doesn’t hang around waiting for our ideas to come to fruition, of course. We had thought that our hopes for regular welcome sessions may be our fresh way to being open to inquirers. The week before the exploratory meeting inquirers came seeking! The ventures happily became parallel sooner than anticipated.

Thankfully, when the invited group met they did not want to hear and then just rubber stamp the ideas proposed but responded to the questions raised and added their own. What happened was an appraisal of how welcome is experienced by all and how it could be. We prayed together, reflected and explored suggestions about who the people are whom we want to welcome. The list included: ourselves, new parishioners, the curious, those who may wish to re-discover a once familiar belonging along with those who have a wish to get to know the Lord and us better and may wish to begin a process towards initiation.

What has happened so far is that the discussion continues among parishioners as the group talk with others. The newsletter was used to alert all to the meeting beforehand and to give a brief account of the ongoing nature of the enterprise. One of the most heartening outcomes was a date in diaries to meet again as a steering group – one that is open and inclusive and listens. A decision that will be worked on initially is to use Christmas, with its customary visitors and ‘returnees’, as a first step in offering invitations to ‘come and see’. It is intended to offer a couple of dates for informal gatherings to be planned for soon after Christmas. Similar action was envisaged for Easter and September. We can work more then with suggestions of how this is to be done and explore materials like those available from CASE (Catholic Agency to Support Evangelisation).

Other questions raised were around how welcome is practiced weekly and how to utilise better our restricted entrance space. Work had begun some time ago on compiling information about the parish in the form of a parish booklet and action was decided on bringing that to fruition.

What we learned was a lesson in how listening and dialogue change and open up ideas – perhaps this is an affirmation of the principle that where even ‘two or three gather together…’ [After apologies, we were 12 or 13!]. We also learned something of the need to change pace in order to include the values and perspectives of others. One step at a time…and need for patience while ‘God gives the growth’!

The hope for yearlong group opportunities to welcome potential inquirers had started with two of us. It took a day or so to realise that this had not been rejected but transformed for the moment and may come in the future. However, there is a sense of shared growth, enthusiasm and responsibility that is enlivening.

Ultimately we have the Spirit of God prodding us to honour the pastoral cycle of continuously bringing ideas together, allowing new ones to be born and moving into action: to explore the mystery of Christ. We are conscious that those of us with leadership in Christian initiation in the parish have the task of keeping the vision of the Rite to the fore in all areas of parish life.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with our spirits!

Catherine D

Sarah* wrote last January, “I do not know if you are still there now that Christmas has passed, but I would like to let you know that shortly after my e-mail to you my local church had a penitential service. This helped me go to Confession. I have been going to Mass and Communion ever since, including on Christmas Day and most of the Octave of Christmas, as I was off work at that time. It takes quite a lot of courage to go to Confession after 34 years. Thank you for your encouragement. The Christmas season was very joyful for me. I hope lots of other people have been helped through ‘Come Home For Christmas’.”

Another enquirer wrote: “I am a lapsed Catholic who recently moved to a new area and returned to the Catholic community… I am completely unfamiliar with Mass / Catholic law and am feeling lost and alienated. Finding help to answer questions when you return to the fold is proving difficult, unless I prefer having the whole parish know I and my spouse are ‘prodigals’. The most difficult thing in my life was to admit to myself that I had made a terrible, wrong decision in abandoning my faith. I am too embarrassed to ask anyone in the parish for help as only the Father (priest) knows that I stopped going to Mass 18 years ago aged 15. I sincerely pray that you are able to help.”

One couple who received an invitation letter said: “It was sleeping beauty waking up.” Someone who received a home visit said: “Now for the first time, I feel that I really belong to the parish.”

These are just some of the responses the Catholic Enquiry Office received as a result of last year’s first ‘Come Home For Christmas’ initiative, which was launched to equip parishes to warmly welcome those baptised who for many different reasons no longer attend church. Tailor-made posters, invitation cards, leaflets, welcome packs and a website were made available in support of this work of evangelisation. Parishes and individuals distributed around 100 000 leaflets and new materials are now available for Advent 2008 and January 2009. See: www.caseresources.org.uk and www.comehomeforchristmas.co.uk

St Hilda’s Parish in Sunderland was one of last year’s participating parishes. Parish Priest, Fr Noel Colahan said: “Parishioners seemed delighted to have something specific to hand to people. Having a physical resource made it easier to issue an invitation without appearing to pile on the pressure too much.”

Sheila Keefe, who is a parishioner at St Joseph’s in Romsey and promoter of the Portsmouth Diocesan KIT (Keeping In Touch) programme said: “So many church-going Catholics are concerned about their children and grandchildren who don’t seem to have any links with their local parish. We’ve found ‘Come Home For Christmas’ to be a real source of hope and, as a follow up to the initial Christmas invitations, the KIT programme offers home visits and small group meetings where people can share their stories and learn a little about today’s Church. In fact our meetings went down so well that we continued to meet in the local pub during the summer months.”

The Catholic Agency to Support Evangelisation (CASE) is resourcing this year’s initiative and the theme of the outreach materials is “…something missing?” Also being offered is a free information pack from the Catholic Enquiry Office and a text featuring a message of welcome from Cardinal Cormac-Murphy O’Connor.

Clare Ward from CASE said: “We were overwhelmed by the response from parishes last year and are hoping for an even greater one this year. A variety of materials are available in recognition of the fact that ‘no one size fits all’ in a Catholic understanding of evangelisation. Do contact us. We’d be delighted to support and resource you and your parish.”

Bishop Malcolm McMahon, Chair of the Bishops’ Conference Department for Evangelisation and Catechesis, said: “The star of Bethlehem clearly guided the three kings on their long and arduous journey from a distant place to the wondrous reality of Jesus’ birth. In the months leading up to this extraordinary event, let’s seriously consider in our families, parishes, in our lives, how we can serve as stars, as beacons, leading those baptised who are no longer church-goers to ‘come home’, to attend Mass. Be bold and courageous. I encourage you to respectfully reach out and ’shine’.”

For more information and resources please e-mail: info@comehomeforchristmas.co.uk
www.caseresources.org.uk
For more information about KIT please see: www.kit4catholics.org.uk E-mail: enquiries@kit4catholics.org.uk

Also see: www.everybodyswelcome.org.uk

Those who have loved and lost know what Good Friday and Holy Saturday feel like – and know too the yearning for hope beyond them.  The Paschal Mystery at the heart of our faith offers that hope and our sharing of it may start with a simple invitation to come to Mass in November and light a candle in memory of a loved one.

Some seeds of ideas …

• This November, draw on some of the traditions of the Church and live them with catechumens and candidates.
• Consider ways of using this season of remembrance as a means of evangelising with those who plan the liturgy.

• Explore appropriate ways for those involved in bereavement support to act as evangelisers.

It was an interesting conversation in a small parish office - talking about RCIA - initiating adults - how challenging it could be to sort out irregularities in marriages of people coming forward to join the Church- the process of ensuring that people had begun to conform their lives to Christ - marking the journey to Baptism with various rites and making sure that the new Catholics were well-supported during the period of mystagogia.

We are all familiar with the process - but this was somewhat different as the office was in the parish of St Vincent de Paul, Koko, Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso. (If you’re not sure where Burkina is or what it is like, click this link to see what Wikipedia says about on Burkina Faso). I had gone out for the ordination of a new Missionary of Africa (White Father), Anselme Tarpaga, in the cathedral there and the opportunity to chat to people about the inculturation of liturgy and Christian Initiation was irresistible.

Pere Albert with young women from a local village in Konadougou parish

Among those who spoke of the culture in which the White Fathers and Sisters were evangelising was Père Albert, a German priest with 37 years experience of living and working among the peoples of Africa. He invited me to spend a few days out in the mission station of Konadougou in the south-west in the Diocese of Banfora.  This is pretty remote and Père Albert said that when he first came people hid behind trees as he passed in his truck… now they clamour for a lift as he passes at the end of the day! In such a place, evening meetings are impossible – people are understandably reluctant to risk meeting snakes on the way home! So much of the catechesis is done in basic Christian communities with leaders coming together for formation and to discuss how their catechumens are progressing. As the leaders can travel up to 20 km, meetings take place during the day and the people obviously need to be fed before returning home. Catechumens are brought together for a 7-day retreat each year with a two-week one during the Lent before their baptism – a chance to reflect together and deepen their spiritual lives… and a hefty commitment of time for subsistence farmers at the hottest time of year. Each week in Lent has its own rite – but given the distance between the Mass centres, not all can happen in every centre every week (as indeed Mass does not always happen).

A family's fetish in the village

The process takes 3-4 years – a one year pre-catechumenate and three year catechumenate – though this can be slightly less where candidates are literate and can undertake study and reflection at home.

Most of the people coming forward are animists, brought up with fetishes and animal sacrifices – and polygamy. It is the latter that often exercises the catechists and clergy and questions about the marital status of the catechumen form a significant part of the questionnaire the leader of the Basic Christian Community fills in to state the readiness of any given candidate. Where a man or woman is in a polygamous marriage, they cannot be baptised but, after their four years of formation receive a blessing during Eastertime. Where the marriage is to one other person, it is regularised as a religious marriage (to go along with the traditional and civil ceremonies that most people also have).

In the town, catechist Georges described a very similar process with candidates following a course of books which opens with the very simple question – who/ what is a catechist? (It prompts the thought about whether people coming to our sessions actually know who or what a catechist might be!) At the end of each year, the prospective new Catholic receives a small token to make the stage in their journey:
End of pre-catechumenate – a miraculous medal
Year 1 of catechumenate – a rosary
Year 2 – medaille croix – a cross with small images of the miraculous medal, St Christopher, the Holy Spirit, Christ and a Madonna
Year 3 – a crucifix
The main responsibility for the formation of the new Christian rests with the Basic Christian Community.

Lent is again marked by rites for each week – and, being in a town, means that people are more able to participate. Week 1 is the call of the candidate who seeks baptism and the vouching for them of the Base Community, catechists and clergy.
Week 2 is the formal renunciation of animistic practices and an exorcism of “esprits mauvaises”.
Week 3 is the giving of and recitation of the Creed by the catechumens.
Week 4 has the “Rite du Sel” – where candidates take salt as a sign of being salt of the earth. There is also the signing of the senses.
Week 5 is the choice of Christian name – where the catechumens give the name they have chosen and why.
The catechumens stay in Mass throughout their catechumenate – there is no dismissal after the Liturgy of the Word – and take full part in the liturgies of Holy Week.

The Easter Vigil starts at 21.00 with the Liturgy of Light and of the Word – and is timed so that the baptisms take place at midnight. There is then a thanksgiving Mass for the newly-baptised on Easter Monday with a blessing for those whose polygamous marriage prevents their being baptised.

Confirmation is deferred for a year and further instruction continues, reinforcing the new way of life the Christian is establishing. Various pictures are used for discussion and particularly significant seemed to be the emphasis on Christ as the perfect sacrifice and the need for the new Christian not to revert back to the sacrifice of chickens, sheep or goats of their animist past. There was also the interesting picture of a man beating a woman – with the explanation that this behaviour too is something that is not appropriate in a Christian marriage.

Of necessity, this really is just a brief summary of the conversations and experience of the Church in Burkina Faso – a country in Africa that prides itself on being an integrated nation where Moslems. Christians and animists live side by side. More snippets can be found on the blog I kept during my time there… including the experience of going to a place sacred to animists.  Click here to read more:  http://www.bilbosjourneys.blogspot.com/

Today is the feast of St Etheldreda! She was born in AD 636, the daughter of the King of East Anglia, a Christian, who did much for the conversion of his kingdom and neighbouring Wessex. Having been married twice, Etheldreda then built a large monastery at Ely, where she was Abbess for 7 years. Her influence was wide, and many of her friends, relations and courtiers came to her for spiritual guidance. She was a friend of St Wilfrid, and adviser to the young St Cuthbert too. These saints are all part of our rich Christian culture in these islands. It strikes me that over the Summer months, it would be good to introduce our candidates and catechumens to some of our fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers in faith, and it could be fun! We could plan visits and picnics to local convents and monasteries in the town and countryside - ring the guestmaster or pastoral centre in advance to ask - and I’m sure there would be a warm and hospitable welcome, perhaps even a guided tour, and some opportunity to talk about the history of their order or foundation, and their particular charisms. This could be on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, or one weekday in one of these lovely long Summer evenings. How about a pilgrimmage to a not-to-distant shrine? These would be great opportunities for the parish community to participate very actively in initiating candidates into Catholic Christian life, further developing relationships with them, increasing their sense of belonging with us.

As I write, the gardeners amongst the parish are getting the cemetary ready for an outdoor Mass next Sunday - and I notice two of the candidates have come along to help too. The Mass is for everyone who has someone buried in the cemetary - from the parents of the young lad killed in a helicopter accident last month, to the grandparents of grandchildren who live away from the parish now, and all in between. The graves will be blessed, and then we will all drink sangria in the sunshine (we hope) and talk about their lives and how they influenced us! And in the past, several enquirers have been amongst this group too. So we come back to Etheldreda and other saints in our ’story’ right up to the present day - and as we tell the stories of those who have ‘gone before us marked with the sign of faith’, we will be amazed and humbled at the response, not only in the hearers, but in ourselves too. Perhaps we will find ourselves being seen, and found, and grasped and named and knocked breathless by God - again!
All of a sudden, this year-round catechumenate doesnt seem so hard after all!

In the parish where I serve we are struggling toward an all-year round enquiry group and an all-year round catechumenate. But we’re not there yet. So are we move pretty rapidly through the season of Easter with its primary focus on mystagogy – the pastor in me is already starting to think: ‘And who will we have next year, and where are we going to get them from, and why will they be coming?’

They come as a result of many points of contact, of course. Some are people who have a new and encouraging contact with the Church through our parish Parents and Toddlers group; others through the meeting with priests and catechists in the baptism programme or through marriage preparation, or through the First Holy Communion programme; still others coming because of contact following the death of a family member. People coming from all sorts of ‘Church’ encounters, who have caught the scent of something, got a taste for something and think there is something good here, something beneficial, considering ‘maybe this is something I should investigate more.’

And far be it from me to gainsay the value of these encounters, but there’s a little something in me that niggles. It’s all a bit ‘Churchy’.

I’ve nothing against Church. I happen to think it’s very important, and that the institutions and the community of the Church have an awful lot to offer – indeed much more than I’ve probably realised. But what concerns me a little is that if it is Church that attracts, rather than Jesus, we might be selling the gospel short.

Of course the Lord calls people in all sorts of ways. I just wonder, in a society that is so weak on community and belonging and moral values maybe the attractions of a community such as the Church are such that sometimes, and inadvertently, they might obscure the attractions of Christ himself.

I recall hearing that the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard criticised the clergy for being prostitutes of eternity – people who sold something precious, indeed sold something that should never be sold, but should only be offered, and received, as a gift freely given; as a gift which opens both the one who gives and the one who receives to an extraordinary and ennobling intimacy and experience of profound personal communion one with another. Might our happy and committed RCIA groups sometimes become a substitute for the Kingdom rather than a resource that sustains us as we search for that which we cannot give to each other but which must always come as gift from God.

The Lutheran pastor Deitrich Bonhoeffer seems to have had a concern similar to Kierkegaard when he warned Christians against he called ‘cheap grace’. In The Cost of Discipleship he wrote ‘Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God.’

Bonhoeffer knew the danger of a Christianity that was merely a socialisation, that created comfortable Christians but failed to create disciples willing, precisely, to follow Christ and willing to pay the cost of following him. ‘Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth which has a place for the Fatherhood of God, but omits Christ as the living Son. … There is trust in God, but no following of Christ.’

Now our Catholic theology of Church would want to challenge the idea that Church is simply about socialisation. We confess the sacramentality of the Church, Christ present under the form of, as, us in our social relationships and in our union with him: the Church is a source of grace and not only a human phenomenon. Again, I’m grateful for what I receive and have received from Christ through the Church, and am happy for whatever I can do to help other people to recognise the richness of what the Church is and what she has to offer. But, again I wonder, what it is people come looking for and why? And what do they find that we set before them? The Gospel or something less?

I note the language of RCIA 36 in which the Church establishes what the work of the period of evangelisation and precatechumenate consists of:

Faithfully and constantly the living God is proclaimed and Jesus Christ whom he has sent for the salvation of all. Thus those who are not yet Christians, their heart opened by the Holy Spirit, may believe and be freely converted to the Lord and commit themselves sincerely to him. For he who is the way, the truth, and the life fulfils all their spiritual expectations, indeed infinitely surpasses them. (RCIA 36)

One reading of RCIA 36-47 (the section treating of the period of evangelisation and precatechumenate and the rite of entry into the catechumenate) suggests that our task in the period of evangelisation is (simply?) to evangelise: ritualisation and indeed socialisation come later: that the Church’s expectation is that people are to come to a relationship with God in Christ first. Then (and only then?) are we to help them come to an appreciation also of how the community of the Church is and can be an authentic expression of our relationship with Christ.

Does it have to be either/or? Can it not be both/and? Maybe it can be. But for myself, just at the moment, I wonder about what it actually is.

So how do you recruit? It may not be the right term, but if we put as much energy into recruiting as the National Trust do, just think of the numbers we may be initiating into the Church.

Two things got me going on this, one was a comment  about the likelihood of a Rite of Acceptance, that ‘we may have someone who has just joined the RCIA. They’ve been to the first session’. The second was when I was literally standing at the front door to the parish office and was told ‘that we might have a couple of ‘nibblers’, who’d made an approach. It was probably standing at the outside door to the parish office that did it, but I suddenly thought, how we were failing prospective Christians by waiting for them to approach our church. Both the above comments recorded the expectation that enquirers make their first approach to the church, and while in some respects that is correct, we seem to have forgotten there is an even earlier stage. What might it take before we get into the mindset of being open to evangelisation away from the church door.  

The first thing is to note that evangelisation is not taking every opportunity to ‘preach God’ to the unconverted. It is not proselytising and it’s not moralising. I think of it as being open to the Holy Spirit working in others and using me as its instrument. I couldn’t stand on a street corner and proclaim the Good News of God, but I’ve come to see how in subtle ways I can open other people’s hearts to the joy and hope that Jesus brings.   Here is one example. 

Somebody I know (but not a close friend), who has had their share of worries in their personal and family life, sent me a text  one Sunday morning asking when I went to church if  I would ask my God to keep a special eye on someone for them. It came right out of the blue from someone who had previously told me they couldn’t find God in their lives because of all the troubles they’d endured. I was delighted to be able to text back and say ‘of course’.

I got another text the next week, asking if I would please send the same words to God. I must have been a bit slow, because it needed this text to make me think that I should be doing something other than praying, as I’d been asked. Eventually, I sent a text with a little story about a close (non baptised) friend of mine, who at a time when she was experiencing some family problems, had told me how she liked to call into churches, any church, and look for a statue of a beautiful lady, with a serene face, who she would talk to, and how it used to make her feel calm, and at ease.  After my text there was silence for a while, and then I got a text back that mentioned about looking for a very easy book about God.  I thought of all the books I’ve got and realised that a story version of the Gospel was the best book to start with. I got an email address and sent a few ideas. 

Now I don’t know what will happen with this person’s journey, but I do believe that similar opportunities happen to us all in our daily lives, and that this is when evangelisation takes place. It is a way that the whole parish can get involved in subtle ways in the first period of the RCIA, after all:

‘the precatechumenate is of great importance… It is a time of evangelisation: faithfully and constantly the living God is proclaimed and Jesus Christ who he has sent for the salvation of all. Thus those who are not yet Christians, their hearts opened by the Holy Spirit, may believe and be freely converted to the Lord….’ (# 36).

Being honest, I know in my parish that the message has not yet got through that it is the whole Church, (RCIA General introduction 7), all the baptised, who have a part to play in the very first period of the RCIA (# 8). Until the ‘entire community’ understand that their individual and collective role as Christians is to ‘proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God’ (EN 14) then new Christians will only enter our church when they manage to arrive at the church or parish house door.

Until RCIA ceases to be the domain of the few who make up or are affiliated to the RCIA team, the whole dimension of ‘witness’ will go undetected and undervalued.

I’ll end with a suggestion. As our fully initiated Catholics emerge at the Easter Vigil, how might we benefit from their experience? Has anybody analysed and assessed how the last ten years of enquirers got onto the RCIA? How many of our PPC’s have anyone with responsibility for evangelisation? What strategies can we introduce for reaching out to the unchurched?

How do we use our liturgy to express Catholic identity? Is it accessible to those who are not (or not yet) Catholics? Is it inculturated? Is it faithful to Catholic tradition?*

• Evangelisation in England and Wales- Report to the Catholic Bishops (2002)