Open to the Spirit
Pentecost is upon us – the formal time of Mystagogy is complete, at least for those who were initiated at Easter and in at least some parishes things quieten down again in the catechumenal programme.
Lent and Easter sees extraordinary activity for our RCIA groups. The Rite of Election, Scrutinies, and the celebration of the sacraments at the Vigil, and then adapting ourselves to the distinctive form of catechesis that is Mystagogy and finally the gathering of new Catholics with their bishop. Now there’s a checklist and a half. Which of these things have we done? And which have we failed to do. What omissions were due to us, and which were due to others? What might we learn from how kept Lent and Easter with our catechumens and neophytes this year for what we might want to do next year?
In the parish where I serve our catechumenal programme used to really quieten after Pentecost. In fact it went into complete hibernation – with an expectation that it would start up again in the Autumn. This was the practice up until this year.
That things are different this year is not especially because we decided to do things differently, (and some might say ‘properly’). However change has been thrust upon us by those who have been coming along to our parish enquirers meetings this year.
Unusually (for us) those people have mostly been unbaptised people, and have been young parents with pre-school children. The number of pre-school children for whom our enquirers have responsibility presented us with an early challenge.
Our Enquirers group has traditionally met on a weekday evening. This year’s participants were happy with this so long as they could bring their babies and toddlers with them. The group leaders found this a challenge too far so after six weeks or so we switched to an afternoon meeting which was good for the parents and ok for our leadership team.
The next challenge was just how much formation the group needed at enquiry stage. It was quickly clear that they would not be ready for the sacraments at Easter this year, and that was quite a break with tradition in this parish, where we have for many years operated a curtailed and constrained Autumn to Easter programme. So we had no Easter baptisms or confirmations from this group and had a very much more extended enquiry stage, because the members were very clear they were not ready to make any commitment.
Interestingly enough we did have a number of confirmations this Easter – for a number of adults, already regular in their practice, independently approached the parish team wanting to receive the sacrament. Our enquirers not yet having become catechumens we found it better to establish a new group which met weekly during Lent to prepare for confirmation.
The experience of Lent/Easter was a powerful one for our Enquirers and has helped them all to come to the decision that they want to make the commitment to continue their exploration of faith in a more committed fashion. Which itself presented the team with an issue – what to do about welcoming into the catechumenate, and what form might that catechumenate take.
Over recent years we have not made much of the role of sponsor: the RCIA group itself has tended to take on that responsibility. But this year was to be different in this respect also. We’ve encouraged the enquirers to think about who they already know that in fact is exercising something of that role. And where those people are ready and able we have chosen them to be the sponsors.
The Rite of Entry into the Catechumenate is being celebrated on Trinity Sunday. The season of Easter has come to take on a particular initiatory flavour for our parish. This is not only because of the (usual) celebrations of adult initation at the Easter Vigil. In our diocese confirmations take place in the Easter season and this year all our parish first Holy Communions (about 100!) have taken place over the last 4 Sundays of the Easter season. But this year, when Easter has finished we gather the next Sunday to celebrate a rite which has us mark out work to be done in readiness for Easter 2010.
Our present expectation is that the group will be ready for baptism next Easter but as flexibility has been our keyword so far this year, who knows?
And as for catechumenal process, one good thing that has come from this group is that because of their various other commitments they are happy to try out Sunday dismissal catechesis. This will be something new for us all. So please keep us in your prayers!
Be Alert
BE ALERT
I love the Church’s new year – In this year of Mark the season of Advent begins with the imperative to ‘Be on your guard’, ‘Stay awake’, ‘Be alert’ ‘Don’t be caught asleep’. There is a great urgency in the language, there is no time for sitting back and taking ones time, considering all the options and then coming to a reasonable decision. Now is the time for action.
Wow! It sounds like the Governments response to the Credit Crunch. The difference being that our Government’s urgency is based on the belief that we are all consumers and that our whole economic viability depends on us becoming successful consumers. We kind of sleepwalked into the Credit Crunch by being encouraged to live way beyond our means. Now we are encouraged to become more alert consumers, spending with a purpose to kick start the economy. A pragmatic solution designed to bring about a brighter economic future.
Surely the Advent directives don’t belong to the same pragmatic camp. They certainly challenge us to:
BE ALERT
STAY AWAKE
BE ON OUR GUARD
To what purpose?
Getting ready for Christmas! Granted not the consumer Christmas symbolized by Santa, who year by year has a go at elbowing the infant child out of the crib, but for the celebration of the amazing truth that ‘God loved us so much that he sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent his Spirit into our hearts, crying “Abba Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.’ (Galatians 4:4-7) The great truth is that we already are the children of God, we already have the Spirit of God deep within us, enabling us to address God as “Abba! Father!” We are already heirs – the problem is that we sometimes miss this reality and live as if these great truths weren’t true.
Advent is a time not so much of preparing for Christmas but of longing. A deep longing that we might become what we already are – children of God. Those of us who were fortunate enough to hear the vision of Dr Martin Luther King whose dream of a future where children of different religions and different colour would walk hand in hand had our imaginations captured. We knew that when he spoke of climbing the mountain and looking into the valley and seeing the future – he was speaking of the present and calling on his community and society to change. It was an Advent speech inviting all to be alert, to stay awake and not to be found asleep – the future calling to action in the present.
The prayers used in the celebration of the Rite of Welcome or the Order of the Catechumenate are profoundly Advent prayers:- particularly the signing of the senses where past present and future come together in a great embrace.
“Receive the sign of the cross on your ears,
that you may hear the voice of the Lord.”
“Receive the sign of the cross on your lips.
That you may respond to the word of God” etc etc
Each prayer is an invitation to Be Alert, Be Awake, Be on your Guard. Be Advent people – don’t miss the moment.
Advent Awakening
As we move into the Year of Mark with the dawn of the First Sunday of Advent upon us we are challenged in the short gospel to really go against the grain! I don't know about you, but with dark nights that begin ever earlier and dark mornings that last ever longer, I really want to spend more time sleeping and dosing my way towards the shortest day. But the gospel and the season we are about to enter are very definitely about ‘awakening' and ‘staying awake'. It's perhaps a good time to encourage those we are accompanying to take stock of their journey of awakening to God and God's call in their lives and perhaps to discern their readiness to celebrate the Rite of Welcome or the Rite of Acceptance. At the same time it's worth asking whether the parish community is ready too and to consider the best ways of celebrating so that candidates and catechumens become the focus for all to experience the power these rites can have when celebrated well.
I used to only consider a combined rite celebration when dealing with both baptised and un-baptised enquirers and worked hard to differentiate the different elements of both rites so that all involved could appreciate what was happening. But it often failed to impact on the parishioners in the pews who seemed a bit confused and nonplussed and now I'm not so sure that combining these two rites is the best way forward. If we're working hard to make explicit the importance of the whole parish community in our enquirers' journeys, then these two key moments along the way are wonderful opportunities to move that forward. Rather than using a combined rite at one Sunday Mass, if you have both baptised and un-baptised enquirers ready to make that first witness within the parish community then why not celebrate ‘Welcome' during one Sunday Mass and ‘Acceptance' at another Sunday Mass a couple of weeks later, and maybe at a different time (Saturday evening Vigil perhaps). This will enable the parish community to see clearly that there are differences but more importantly, to have the opportunity of welcoming on a more personal and individual level. It will also encourage a more discerning spirit within the RCIA group as it decides who might be ready for these end of first stage rites. Finally, it can help to prevent that programmed sense of "We'll celebrate Welcome and Acceptance' next week because it's Advent and that's when we always do it!"
This First Sunday's readings also provide us with a rich array of images of the God who calls us and working with these would provide a lovely reflective session as part of the discernment process. How and where in our awakening to God might we have encountered God as:
Father, Redeemer, Ancient One, Guide, Melter of Mountains, the Presence, God as Face Hider, Creator, Potter, Shepherd, Planter and Protector of vines, Life Giver?
Not to mention 'the unexpected owner of the house who looks for a wide awake welcome'!
Why do we think Evangelisation starts at the Church door?
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?*
Catechesis in Advent: Christ past, present and future
Most parish enquiry groups are a mixed bag, so I don't think ours is unique in that we have two unbaptised teenagers and their uncatechised but baptised Mum; a person who was 'received' elsewhere two years ago through one-to-one instruction but has never felt she 'belongs' to the Catholic church, and although fully initiated, she comes along to share in the catechesis; then we have a man whose first marriage has just been annulled, now engaged to a young widow parishioner; another is married to a Catholic whose children are now being prepared for Holy Communion and he wants to think about becoming a Catholic himself; a woman from a Protestant background with a strong personal relationship with God, but no experience of 'church practice'; and finally, a woman who met one of our neophytes in a cycling club and is interested in finding out more (about the Church, not cycling!)
When we first started using the Rites of Initiation of Adults we were worried about this sort of mix, and how to meet each person's needs. Now we have stopped worrying! We see it as real 'treasure' for the parish. Using the liturgical year, and the lectionary, as mainstays for our catechesis, we have found that over a period of between 1 and 3 years our catechumens come to a deep understanding and experience of the mysteries at the heart of our faith. We are no longer 'driven' by the time constraints of a more programmatic approach - and we would call this more of an 'apprenticeship' into the Catholic Christian way of life - the sort envisaged in the Rite itself.
All these people have knocked at our door at odd intervals since last January, and we have trained ourselves (!) to say 'Come in' rather than 'Come back in September'. We are muddling our way towards an all-year round 'Come and See' enquiry. By about Advent most people have been with us for several months, and we offer the first opportunity for the Rite of Welcome (or Acceptance). In looking at the Rite together, seeing what is required, it has been discerned (by us and them) that 3 of our 7 enquirers are ready for this step. And that hasn't been difficult - people know when they are reay, and we can see the change in them over the months - there is an infectious enthusiasm, an openness to the Gospel, eagerness to learn to pray, to be part of community life. Others are still a little cautious about what this commitment might mean, and want to carry on asking questions.
With the limited resources in our small rural community, the team decided to have the enquiry and catechumenal sessions on the same night. This means a welcoming drink and chat, followed by prayer time and gospel sharing together, and then split into the two groups for the deepening catechesis, with two members of the team guiding the process in each group, with sponsors there to support. 
The main 'pillar' of our catechesis in Advent for both groups continues to be the Sunday gathering, with opportunity to reflect afterwards on the experience of the Liturgy - the heady mix of signs and symbols, gestures and vestures, words and silence, is rich enough fayre for any apprentice to feast on! Leading up to Christmas we have some parish activities planned, and the enquirers and catechumens are actively encouraged to take part in community life - special advent liturgies, an outreach to the elderly housebound, a presentation on our Zimbabwe project - all of this is part of the apprenticeship in the Christian way of life, deepening the awareness of Christ in the season of Advent. Yes, Christ in history, and Christ who will come again, but most importantly, the Christ who comes and is present is so many ways in our every-day C21 lives.
Resources:
- Have a look at RCIA Network website [www.rcia.org.uk] for Tool Box for discernment among other things;
- The Liturgy Office for info on lectionary based catechesis and lectio divina.
- www.cliftondiocese.com produce some resources for year-round lectionary based catechesis
- Shrewsbury (Paddy Rylands) and Brentwood (Nuala Gannon) produce weekly 'lectio divina' leaflets.