Franciscan at Home

In her book Forming Intentional Disciples, Sherry Weddell remarks that “Pew researchers found that attending CCD, youth groups and even Catholic high schools made little or no difference in whether or not an American Catholic teen ended up staying Catholic, becoming Protestant or leaving to become unaffiliated. The best predictor of adult attendance at religious service is strong adult faith.”[i] Without detracting from our efforts with children, the Catholic Church has always intended that adult faith formation receive priority in parish life. Pope St. John Paul II remarks in Catechesi Tradendae (43) that adult catechesis is “the principal form of catechesis, because it is addressed to persons who have the greatest responsibilities and the capacity to live the Christian message in its fully developed form.” Adult catechesis is centered on a lifelong deepening of faith in Christ, thus serving as the point of reference for catechesis in other age groups. Whether you are involved in religious education, youth ministry, or pastoral care at your parish, all parish staff are ministers of and to the adults of the parish. Strong catechesis of youth and young adults has its foundation in adult catechesis and we need to orient parish life to the centrality of adult faith formation.

The Sacrament of Confirmation is often referred to as “a sacrament in search of a theology” or “a sacrament in search of meaning” among pastoral ministers. Even though the catechetical documents present a consistent theology of confirmation, the diversity in pastoral practice from diocese to diocese, and even from parish to parish within the same diocese, would suggest that the Sacrament of Confirmation has different meanings and even different theologies. Instead, I propose that the diversity in praxis is not the result of a variant theology, but rather of different pastoral approaches.

When I entered the Catholic Church, I lost my “job” of 13 years as a Pentecostal pastor and had to look for other employment. The only available interview was at a Nissan dealership. In the interview, the General Sales Manager (GSM) said they were short staffed and I could have the job if I was willing to train myself by making use of their training videos. I was desperate for a job and said yes! I had no idea what I was in for.

I eagerly arrived for my first day at work and was given a shared desk with a phone and shown all the brochures for the different models of cars. After reviewing the brochures, I went to the assistant manager and asked to see the training videos. He looked at me with indifference. He said the GSM was off for the day and the videos were locked in his office.

I asked, “Well, if I can’t watch the videos, what should I do?” At that question, he became agitated. He looked at me and said, “Why do you need them? Sell me a car!” I stared back sheepishly, in silence. He continued, “Come on. How hard can it be? Sell me a car. Right now.” I uttered a few “ums” and he gave a few more commands on how I should be able to just “know” how to sell him a car. I meandered back to my desk and read brochures for the rest of the day.

Two days later, I realized I had no price sheet and didn’t know the cost of the cars. I tentatively approached the assistant manager again and asked him how to find the cost of the cars. Once again, he became agitated, looked at me and said, “Do I need to do everything for you? You gotta get out on the lot and look at the prices on each car. You gotta get to know the cars and their features.” I thought to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me. There is no price sheet? There is no book that contains all the features with pricing options and my only way to knowledge is to wander the lot and look at sticker prices?”

As it turns out, there was a book with all the information that I needed, but they didn’t give me one. Eventually the other salesmen had mercy on me and began to show me the ropes—management never did.

I was thrown into an environment and expected to have a particular outcome without the requisite training. Instead of an opportunity for apprenticeship, I landed in a dealership of dysfunction. Many times, those who prepare to become Catholic experience the same thing. RCIA is often good at telling people what they need to do, when it should be showing people how to do it. The Church says that RCIA should be an “apprenticeship in the whole Christian life” (General Directory for Catechesis, 63; Ad Gentes, 14). So, what does an apprenticeship look like?

One of the major temptations of being a leader in the RCIA process is to overlook the significance and power of the Period of Purification and Enlightenment. It is such a busy time in the process—organizing the scrutinies, working on all of the planning for the Easter Vigil, and just working through the exhaustion that comes after journeying through a long process. But it is important for us to remember that this period is one that is filled with great grace and great opportunity for the elect to grow significantly in their relationship with Christ.
A Major Catechetical Shift

One big challenge that faces us in this period is the catechetical aspect. When we do a closer examination of what the Church calls for in this period, we find that not only does Purification and Enlightenment bring about a major catechetical shift from the kind of catechesis presented in the catechumenate, but that catechesis also plays a pivotal role in bringing the elect and candidates into a much deeper knowledge of and more intense relationship with Christ.

Our first clue of this catechetical shift is in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults itself, which tells us that Purification and Enlightenment is “a period of more intense spiritual preparation, consisting more in interior reflection than in catechetical instruction to purify the minds and hearts of the elect as they search their consciences and do penance” (139). We see here that the complete and systematic catechetical instruction that we had been doing in the catechumenate should have already been completed by the time of the Rite of Election. Now, catechesis shifts in its focus: to purify the minds and hearts of the elect and facilitate a time of penance and purification, in other words, to help them come to a real understanding of their sinfulness and their need for ongoing conversion and repentance.

However, this is only half of the picture of the kind of catechesis we should be doing in this period. The Rite continues, “This period is intended as well to enlighten the minds and hearts of the elect with a deeper knowledge of Christ the Savior.” Now we have the complete picture of what the Church is asking us to do in our catechesis in this period. On the one hand, the elect are called to intense purification—to come to grips with their sin and their desperate need of salvation and grace. On the other hand, their minds need to be enlightened with a deep and personal knowledge of and intimacy with Christ who is their Savior.

The Church has been entrusted with the fullness of the truth, God’s final self-revelation in Jesus Christ, who is the “image of the invisible Father” and in whose image each human person is created. Because we know Jesus Christ, we can see and understand the truth about man. For this reason, the Catholic Church has the only adequate anthropology, meaning that she possesses a true and complete understanding of the human person.

To an increasingly secular culture this sounds like anti-cultural blasphemy. Why? To answer that question, let’s look at the radically different ideas about reality from which our culture and our Church begin the project of understanding what it is to be human.
A Fundamental Difference

To understand the growing gap between Catholic and secular anthropology we have to recognize that each grows organically from one of two mutually exclusive concepts of the ultimate reality—that reality which explains the existence of everything else.

For Catholics the ultimate reality is the eternal Blessed Trinity, who created the universe and all it contains from nothing, by a free act of infinite power and love. For modern secularists, the ultimate reality is matter, the revealingly named “God Particle” from which all other particles and composites are made.

These two paradigms are utterly incompatible.

The classical Judeo-Christian worldview flows from the fact that we understand creation has a Creator and that the Creator has a purpose and intention for his creation, most especially human beings, whom he made in his image and likeness to share in his own blessed life.

The modern secularist worldview flows from the false idea that only matter exists, tumbling through the void of time and space, combining and recombining according to the immovable laws of physics in an unending, purposeless reshuffling of atoms.

On that view, everything spiritual (God, souls, mind, will, etc.) is simply an illusion created by the exhaust of biomechanical processes. This philosophy is called Materialism. It is not true, but it is dangerous and has deeply influenced our culture.

Let’s examine more closely how all this colors our view of man.

Every January we enter back into ordinary time with the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan by John the Baptist. As John’s father Zachariah prophesied at his birth, John is the “Precursor” who “will go before the Lord to prepare his way” (cf. Lk 1:76).

This transition to ordinary time provides a rich context for a fresh reflection on our Christian mission to “prepare the way of the Lord.” In this article, we’ll look at several philosophical proofs of God’s existence and then see how everyday acts can prepare the mind and heart for faith. In order to enter into this topic, it will help to begin with a few thoughts about human reason.

The purpose of this article is to answer the title-question as succinctly as possible from within the framework of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal interpretation by Pope St. John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor (VS). First we must understand two terms in order to more fully grasp the meaning of conscience and how it operates in life, namely, the terms “freedom” and “truth.”

Truth That Sets Us Free

Freedom and truth are uniquely tethered to one another in the Gospel of John where Jesus says, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (8:31-32). The first thing to note is that truth here is not a mere concept, but a person: the second Person of the Blessed Trinity Incarnate. Truth here is not an ideology; it is neither propaganda, nor can it be reduced to a set of theological propositions. The fullness of truth is a Person, Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, who died and rose again. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council proclaimed as much in Dei Verbum (no. 4) in their treatment of Revelation, taking their cue from the First Letter of John who spoke of “the Word of life – for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us” (1:1-2).

The Council fathers did not intend to divorce Catholic doctrine (truth) from the Person of Christ (the fullness of truth) in their account of Revelation. Rather, they intended to teach something more profound about truth, namely, its power to summon, call, beckon, entreat, instruct, and even lay claims to our freedom. Truth shines like light in the darkness (Jn 1:5), similar to what St. Paul taught when he wrote: “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). There is splendor in truth whereby we can legitimately speak of being addressed by veritatis splendor. Jesus made this clear before Pilate when he said: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (Jn 18:37).[i]

In coming to know this truth, which is to say, by remaining in Christ, the Light of the World (Jn 8:12), we are set free. We are freed primarily for love, since there can be no love without freedom; and freedom for the purposes of this article is defined as: self-possession through realization of the good. If love is a ready self-donation or laying down one’s life for one’s friends (Jn 15:13), then one obstacle to love surely includes being insufficiently self-possessed as to render an authentic gift of oneself more difficult; there’s “no one” to give. Being set free in further “finding oneself” through realization of the good, however, means that the abuse of freedom is possible as well, such that evil follows. In the experience of evil, we do not so much give ourselves as throw ourselves away, thereby becoming “lost” (Lk 15). Such evil actions steadily lead to lesser degrees of freedom as we throw ourselves away instead of preparing the gift in and through greater self-possession. Greater self-possession is another way of conceiving the truth that in giving ourselves, we find ourselves (Gaudium et Spes [GS] no. 24). This was why Jesus counseled us: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces” (Mt 7:6). Evil is what evil does, ending by “tearing you to pieces,” stealing “you” away along with your self-possession and freedom by trampling them underfoot. This is a distinctive way of “losing oneself” that is pleasing neither to God nor to Jesus Christ whom he sent.

Pope St. John Paul II fully understood the essential role that real parish community plays in the mission of catechesis. In Catechesi Tradendae he makes an astonishing statement regarding the necessity of Christian community, which is easy to bypass without letting the force of his words set in: “Catechesis runs the risk of becoming barren if no community of faith and Christian life takes the catechumen in at a certain stage of his catechesis.”[3] The pope put his finger directly on what many of us know experientially, namely, that though many may come into the Church, instead of finding a Christian community they find isolation, lack of zeal, and an environment that can kill any vestiges of Christian joy. If you think my words too strong, look again at what the pope wrote: if there is no community to receive the catechumen, all the catechesis you’ve done (pre-catechumenate, catechumenate, etc.) will prove lifeless (barren). His use of the word barren is striking. He emphasizes that Christian formation disconnected from real community will not be able to generate or sustain life. It might produce sacramentalized people but not disciples. According to Matthew 28:19, the mission is to make disciples, and Baptism is part of that process. Too often, it seems that Catholics see the mission as Baptism, with a little bit of discipleship on the side, and only if there’s time. Without Christian community, we set up our catechumens to be just like the Franciscan University students in the early 1970s: isolated, alone, addicted, and soon-to-be non-practicing Catholics.

Why do so many newly baptized Catholics stop practicing their faith within only a couple years? The causes of attrition are various, and can include inadequate catechesis in the RCIA process, lack of interior conversion to Christ, and insufficient support and connection with other Catholics or the wider parish community.[i]

Let’s think about these new Catholics for a minute. Still wet from baptism and glistening with the oil of confirmation, they now have a new status and, according to the tradition of the Church, a new name. The elect who have been initiated into the Catholic Church are called “neophytes.” The term neophyte comes from the Greek, neos, meaning new, and phutos, meaning grown or planted, so, literally, “newly planted.” The former catechumens are now newly planted or grafted onto the Vine who is Christ. Initially, the term neophyte meant only those receiving full sacramental initiation; it has come to refer equally to candidates who are received into the Church. They retain this special name and status for a year following their initiation.

If the neophytes are fortunate, their parish provides a post-baptismal catechesis called Mystagogy, which lasts until Pentecost. Yet, whether at Easter or at Pentecost, the RCIA experience ends, and they set forth to begin a Catholic life, but now unaccompanied—seemingly alone and often surrounded at work and at home with non-Catholics, who are anything but supportive of their new faith. They are “newbies” in a faith that takes a lifetime to learn, in a world ever more hostile to the basic premises of Christianity. Their need for pastoral care is, one could argue, every bit as great as when they were engaged in becoming Catholic. No gardener would put his new plants in the ground unprotected in the early spring. No, he would keep them in a greenhouse, or cover them with plastic, and keep a careful watch on them. Just so, the newly planted need to be accompanied and strengthened as they “practice” being Catholic. This is the purpose of the “Neophyte Year.”

Before I became Catholic, if there was one word that summed up my evangelical Pentecostal Protestant experience, it was “spontaneous.” If there was one word that summed up my perception of the Catholic experience, it was “rubric.” My perception was that Protestants were spontaneous and therefore “authentic,” while Catholics had rubrics and were therefore “lifeless.” After I became Catholic, I began to work with RCIA and discovered that apparently I’m not alone. While concluding an RCIA inquiry meeting one year, I closed in an extemporaneous prayer and, when finished, one of the inquirers said out loud, “Wow! I had no idea you could pray like that. I thought Catholics could only pray memorized prayers.” As I have settled into being Catholic, I’ve learned the key to “authenticity” in prayer is not spontaneity but sincerity. Yes, there are many rubrics and prewritten prayers, but these are given to ensure that the faithful will hear more than an individual’s personal insights. As the tears streamed down my face during the Mass where my wife and I were received into full communion, there was nothing “spontaneous” about the event. The fact that I knew what was coming did not make it any less powerful or life giving. I’ve also learned that there is room for spontaneity. Like most things in the Church, it is both/and, with everything being done in its proper place and time. This article will examine aspects in the Church’s RCIA that allow for “planned spontaneity.” I use the phrase “planned spontaneity” because they are not truly spontaneous, but areas where the Church gives the celebrant freedom to adapt a particular part of the rite. I hope this article will inform those who direct RCIA and inspire priests to be more pastorally effective.