Franciscan at Home

According to the General Directory for Catechesis, “adult catechesis must be given priority.”[1] In fact, the GDC links adult catechesis to the baptismal catechumenate: [Adult catechesis] “involves ‘a post-baptismal catechesis, in the form of a catechumenate...presenting again some elements from the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults with the purpose of allowing a person to grasp and live the immense, extraordinary richness and responsibility received at Baptism.’”[2] Therefore, adult catechesis is not simply a refresher course in content but is permeated by the idea that the life of Baptism (and each of the sacraments) must be lived in maturity. And this requires ongoing formation and support, a “permanent mystagogy.”[3] Therefore, Pope Benedict XVI, in Sacramentum Caritatis, calls for a “mystagogical approach to catechesis, which would lead the faithful to understand more deeply the mysteries being celebrated.”[4] Initiation is ultimately ordered to being one with our Lord in an intimate and eternal communion. Such intimacy requires that we approach Jesus’s Body with love, free from serious sin, and with a reverent disposition. However, many seem to take the reception of Communion lightly in the Church today. Reception of the Eucharist, for many, has become routine, uniform, and even presumed as a right, regardless of canonical standing or state of soul. We know from St. Paul that improper reception of Communion works against its true purpose and rather than deepening our participation in the life of God, it can actually alienate us from him: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself" (1 Cor. 11:27-30, RSV).

Practically speaking, within Canon Law, the many canons that deal with the Sacrament of Matrimony are more numerous than any other sacrament, including Holy Orders and the Eucharist. That is a staggering and sobering fact. The Church highly regulates the Sacrament of Matrimony because she knows that marriage and family life are the building blocks of the human family as well as the Church. The rights and responsibilities that are codified in the canons reflect the revealed truth and dignity of this sacrament.

I would like to address one ministry within the parish that frequently runs head on into these requirements. This ministry is charged with passing on the truth about the dignity of the sacrament, while pastorally supporting individuals, couples and families as they come to know the Bridegroom and his love for his Church. That ministry is the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

RCIA team members, leaders or catechists do not need degrees in Canon Law; but every member of the team needs to understand the pastoral vision and plan for serving individuals whose current marriage or previous marriage does not conform to the requirements of Canon Law. These marriages are not rare. Although every marriage and its circumstances are unique, discussion and planning by the RCIA team and good pastoral leadership will help everyone involved. I am going to offer a few simple but practical suggestions that may serve as a review and reminder for some and may help others who are struggling with how these situations can be best approached. Once a set of procedures is agreed on, all RCIA team members must be on board.

Many years ago, after a particularly challenging day of ministry, I blurted out (in jest), “Ministry would be easy if it wasn’t for people.” Since then, I occasionally utter this phrase when the complicated nature of people’s lives messes with my nice, ordered ministry schedule—which is most of the time. The point is that the Church, and our ministry as an extension of the Church, exists to make disciples. Disciples are people. People are messy. If your ministry is not messy, you might not be making disciples but simply moving people through a program.

When it comes to messy, nothing compares to couples, marriage and the RCIA.

One year I had members of a blended family desiring to come into full communion with the Catholic Church. The husband and his son were Catholic; the wife and her two children were becoming Catholic. Both had been married before and the couple really wanted God in their life. Even though the husband was Catholic, I invited him to RCIA as well, and he accepted. As the year went on, the kids and husband were doing great, but the wife was having difficulty overcoming her Protestant understanding of certain teachings. Finally, the wife emailed me saying that she was dropping RCIA because the pressure to become Catholic was too much. She felt like she was only doing this for her husband.

Knowing that conversion is a process and that I never know when people will respond to the Holy Spirit, I recommended that she continue with RCIA so that she will at least be aware of what her children and husband are learning. I told her not to worry about Easter and that I’ll assume she is not becoming Catholic. She agreed. The pressure of Easter was off and she enjoyed the classes and kept coming with her husband and children.

Two weeks later I gave a talk on sin, grace and sacraments and how grace breaks the chains of sin. When we transitioned to small group discussions, she told her group leader, “That’s what I need! I need to be free from sin! I’ve tried for years and I can’t do it on my own. I want to become Catholic!” She and her children were received into the Church at the Easter Vigil and the entire family was blessed.

I want to briefly talk about two important areas that must be considered, when ministering to couples in RCIA: sponsors and evangelizing both spouses. I will mainly refer to spouses, but the following principles apply to dating or engaged couples as well.

An atheist, a pagan and a Protestant… This could be the beginning of a really bad joke or it could be illustrative of the type of people that make their way to your RCIA process. Anyone who works with RCIA knows that people come with radically different levels of faith and understanding. If we want to lead these inquirers to a real relationship with Christ and His Church, we must first lay a firm foundation. Let me share with you three real stories I’ve encountered over the years while directing RCIA.

John, in his mid 30s, knows nothing about the Christian faith. While growing up, he did not even learn basic religious knowledge from popular religious holidays. He believes in God, but has never been taught. He has a preteen daughter who has been attending a Catholic school. He has never been married and is living with a woman who is not his daughter’s mother. John finally realized he needed something more and when he saw a religious sister in town, he asked if she could help him. A few weeks later, John was in my RCIA Inquiry class.

Joan, about 20, has learned bits and pieces of Christian teaching, but most of her knowledge comes from media and friends. She is a thinker and has many questions. Joan is willing to believe, but is unsure if God even exists. She has Catholic friends who invited her to RCIA.

Jim, in his early 40s, is a nominally engaged Protestant who is married to a Catholic and has three children. The children are preparing to be baptized in the Catholic Church and while interested, he has the usual Protestant reservations about Catholicism. He believes in Jesus, but has a long way to go to accept the Catholic Church. Since his children are preparing to be baptized, he agreed to attend RCIA and learn for himself.

It is clear from the above cases that each person has specific needs and must overcome very diverse obstacles before coming to conversion to Jesus Christ. The question is, “How does your RCIA handle these diverse situations?”

The greatest disservice we can do to those in RCIA, is run them through the “program” so they can “become Catholic” and yet have no real attachment to Jesus or His Church. If we simply put people on an RCIA assembly line, we are setting them up to be nominal Catholics or future ex-Catholics. For RCIA to be effective, catechumens and candidates must have real opportunities to say “yes” or “no” to Jesus.

So what is an RCIA director to do? One important step is to develop an effective precatechumenate.

Dear Teresa,

I wonder if you can help me again. I am struggling to get volunteers to help me with my RCIA and also to be honest, struggling to get the parish to realise this is something they all are meant to be involved in. I don’t know where to go for information on this, and they just stare at me and tell me the last RCIA catechist just did everything herself. Here’s hoping you can help!

God bless,

Julie

Dear Teresa,

I'm so glad to hae someone experienced to turn to for advice.

We have a few new people in our RCIA team, and I would like to give them some basic formation on the Christian life, as this is what our catechumens and candidates are seeking. I’m not quite sure where to start though. What are your thoughts?

Yours hopefully,
Julie

Dear Julie,

How lovely to hear from you again, and I am so pleased to hear your team is growing. What a good idea to start your team’s training and formation with an introduction to the aspects of the Christian life! I suggest the best place to start is with this small scripture verse from Acts 2:42: ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (RSV). Christian Initiation, as you say, is to prepare someone for Christian life in all its dimensions.

Dear Teresa,

Thank you for the help you gave me. It makes total sense that we should start with evangelisation, and looking to the Rites has been amazing in that it has helped me really engage with this period. I was going to ask you about the next stage, but something has come up. At the Easter Vigil, we had a small group received into the Church and then that was it for them. It struck me that this seems odd. I worry about one of them in particular as this person has no Catholic support network and her sponsor no longer calls her either. So often it seems that people lapse in their new found faith, and I wonder if this may be one reason why. I’d appreciate your thoughts.
Julie

Dear Julie,

Thank you for your letter. How interesting that you raise this point and how right you are to raise it. If you look at the Rites, you will see that this is not the end, but the period of the neophyte year which includes 7 weeks postbaptismal catechesis which is called mystagogy.

This page on Christian initiation is offered in each issue of The Sower as an on-going way to address specific questions that do not necessarily get addressed in more general articles and training resources. The questions all come straight from the field, and have two sources: 1) from readers like you; 2) from issues raised during seminars conducted by the Association for Catechumenal Ministry (ACM) over the past ten years in various dioceses.

In this issue we address the following questions:

Q: Beyond Mystagogy, why is the Neophyte Year of a new Catholic so important?

RCIA Catechists – Stay Tuned!

This page on Christian initiation is offered in each issue of The Sower as an on-going way to address specific questions that do not necessarily get addressed in more general articles and training resources. The questions all come straight from the field, and have two sources: 1) from readers like you; 2) from issues raised during seminars conducted by the Association for Catechumenal Ministry (ACM) over the past ten years in various dioceses.

In this issue we address the following questions:

Q. An RCIA inquirer has recently come to our parish and she is seeking to have the Church address the situation of a previous marriage to a man who is a Jew. He was never baptized and neither is she. How does this situation differ from a marriage between two baptized people? Would a Pauline or Petrine privilege be relevant here?

Q. I’m having trouble finding really solid catechetical material for adults in the Spanish language. What is available for someone developing an RCIA process for a Hispanic community?

Eric Deitel looks at how we can ensure that the RCIA process is fully respectful of the dignity of each person.

Non-baptized persons and baptized non-Catholics seek to enter into full communion with Christ and His Church through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). Many RCIA programs can fall into the trap of making a cookie-cutter program that all people go through for a certain amount of time to become Catholic. These programs fail to assess each person’s background and history and can tend to treat the person more as an object moving through an assembly line. St. Augustine’s work, De Catechizandis Rudibus can help give great advice to help these RCIA programs get out of this trap. In the eighth chapter of his work, St. Augustine identified a type of people who seek to enter into the catechumenate but do not fit the average person. St. Augustine identified this person as someone who has some basic knowledge of the Christian faith and willingness to live it. Augustine then gives practical advice on how to individualize the RCIA process.

St. Augustine viewed that instruction for people seeking the sacraments should be personalized as much as possible. Augustine used two key characteristics to look for when assessing the individual: pure motives and a Christian education. He expressed that the individual’s motives are “to be made a partaker in the sacrament.”[i] This makes evident the purity of his or her motives. The individual was seeking ‘only’ the spiritual benefits of the Church in the sacraments and not the temporal benefit of being a Christian which St. Augustine described early in his work.[ii] The second key characteristic of this person was his or her education. The person’s education was described as “a considerable knowledge of our Scriptures and literature.”[iii] The word ‘considerable’ showed that Augustine was not speaking of someone who had heard a few stories from the Bible but an individual who has carefully investigated the meaning of the these stories. The individual had a basic knowledge of the Christian faith.