A Treasure Making Treasures
A good friend of mine was in town for Christmas and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with him and enjoy conversation over drinks. He studies Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, and is a devout and frankly pious evangelical. We both were privledged to have been mentored by a wonderful man who exposed us to the riches of Tradition, the importance of spiritual formation, and the necessity of experience and encounter with the Divine in our journey as exiles in this fallen world. Our conversations are always edifying and often leave a lasting impression on my thoughts and imagination. In this recent period of conversation, my friend opened my eyes anew to the special grace and wisdom of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA).
Initiation into the Catholic Church has been long formed by the Church's role in culture: most Catholics are born into the religion and for centuries it had been the only option available to the community in which it was situated. Children were baptized in their infancy and it was their parents' responsibility to educate them in the ways of the faith. Parental instruction was facilitated by parish programs, and through the education system of the time. But adults who were called to the Catholic Church did not have a developed rite to initiate them into the Body of Christ; instead, one-on-one instruction or small class instruction educated them on the primary doctrines of the faith, and they were subsequently baptized in a small and often private affair.
As an initiative of the Second Vatican Council the RCIA has been developed to restore the more ancient model of Christian initiation. And, like so many of the reforms articulated by Vatican II and interpreted through the papacy and the episcopate, we now have available to us a treasure that forms treasures. I have been recently asked to take the responsibility of RCIA Coordinator for my parish, and I gladly accepted the offer. I told my friend about this, and he asked me to explain what the RCIA was. I told him that the RCIA, as our diocese approaches it, has four parts: Inquiry, Catecumenate, Purification and Enlightenment, and Mystagogia.
The Inquiry period runs year-round, on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, from 7 to 9 in the evening. Interested people drop in and participate in prayer, scripture reflection, topical discussion, and have the opportunity to ask questions about the faith. Through prayer and discernment it is determined if the candidate is interested and prepared to enter into the Catechumenate.
Once in the Catechumenate, the candidate participates in the liturgical cycle for one full year. During this year, the catechumen is exposed to the liturgy, parish life, and all the major doctrines of the Church. Presuming that, after one year of catechesis, the candidate is prepared for baptism, he or she is admitted into Purification and Enlightenment, which roughly corresponds to the season of Lent.
In Purification and Enlightenment, the catechumen undergoes guided reflection, prayer, retreat, fasting, and penitence in preparation for baptism at Easter. The main emphasis at this point is not instruction, but spiritual formation and preparation in anticipation of their meeting Christ in the sacraments.
Over the glorious Triduum the candidates pass through the sufferings, death and resurrection of Christ and through the waters of Baptism, supping on Jesus' body and blood, becoming new creatures in full communion with the Church.
In the following weeks of Easter, the neophytes reflect on their experiences during Mystagogia, through mystagogy, or instruction in the mysteries.
After explaining the RCIA process to my friend, he nodded appreciatively and said, "That's what we need in our church; more of our churches need to do things like that."
I remember while I was a part of an evangelical community how often I would be involved in conversations about discipleship, Christian education, and the poverty of knowledge and experience endemic in our communities. So many of our communities had shallow experiences of the faith, or had deep experiences of God that could not be properly understood and were not properly cultivated. Precious few had any understanding of the basic theology regarding their baptisms, or of revelation, or of doctrines like the Incarnation or the Trinity. Too many churches were populated by infants of the faith and could not boast of the instruction that the author of the letter to the Hebrews described as "fundamental doctrines...turning away from dead actions, faith in God, the teaching about baptisms and the laying-on of hands, about the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment (Heb 6:1-2)."
The problem of Christian infancy is not, by any means, an issue particular to evangelicals. Catholic churches have their own burden of adult infants who would choke and wretch on solid food. But within the Catholic Church, the majority of those people are, to use a detestable term, 'cradle Catholics', who have not realized the seriousness nor the cost of true discipleship to Christ.
The same cannot be said of mature converts within Catholicism. Not, at least, within the diocese of Calgary, and within any Catholic community faithful to the teaching of the Magesterium and the council regarding the RCIA. We have been given a treasure that forms treasures, and "That's what we need in our church; more of our churches need to do things like that."
Initiation into the Catholic Church has been long formed by the Church's role in culture: most Catholics are born into the religion and for centuries it had been the only option available to the community in which it was situated. Children were baptized in their infancy and it was their parents' responsibility to educate them in the ways of the faith. Parental instruction was facilitated by parish programs, and through the education system of the time. But adults who were called to the Catholic Church did not have a developed rite to initiate them into the Body of Christ; instead, one-on-one instruction or small class instruction educated them on the primary doctrines of the faith, and they were subsequently baptized in a small and often private affair.
As an initiative of the Second Vatican Council the RCIA has been developed to restore the more ancient model of Christian initiation. And, like so many of the reforms articulated by Vatican II and interpreted through the papacy and the episcopate, we now have available to us a treasure that forms treasures. I have been recently asked to take the responsibility of RCIA Coordinator for my parish, and I gladly accepted the offer. I told my friend about this, and he asked me to explain what the RCIA was. I told him that the RCIA, as our diocese approaches it, has four parts: Inquiry, Catecumenate, Purification and Enlightenment, and Mystagogia.
The Inquiry period runs year-round, on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, from 7 to 9 in the evening. Interested people drop in and participate in prayer, scripture reflection, topical discussion, and have the opportunity to ask questions about the faith. Through prayer and discernment it is determined if the candidate is interested and prepared to enter into the Catechumenate.
Once in the Catechumenate, the candidate participates in the liturgical cycle for one full year. During this year, the catechumen is exposed to the liturgy, parish life, and all the major doctrines of the Church. Presuming that, after one year of catechesis, the candidate is prepared for baptism, he or she is admitted into Purification and Enlightenment, which roughly corresponds to the season of Lent.
In Purification and Enlightenment, the catechumen undergoes guided reflection, prayer, retreat, fasting, and penitence in preparation for baptism at Easter. The main emphasis at this point is not instruction, but spiritual formation and preparation in anticipation of their meeting Christ in the sacraments.
Over the glorious Triduum the candidates pass through the sufferings, death and resurrection of Christ and through the waters of Baptism, supping on Jesus' body and blood, becoming new creatures in full communion with the Church.
In the following weeks of Easter, the neophytes reflect on their experiences during Mystagogia, through mystagogy, or instruction in the mysteries.
After explaining the RCIA process to my friend, he nodded appreciatively and said, "That's what we need in our church; more of our churches need to do things like that."
I remember while I was a part of an evangelical community how often I would be involved in conversations about discipleship, Christian education, and the poverty of knowledge and experience endemic in our communities. So many of our communities had shallow experiences of the faith, or had deep experiences of God that could not be properly understood and were not properly cultivated. Precious few had any understanding of the basic theology regarding their baptisms, or of revelation, or of doctrines like the Incarnation or the Trinity. Too many churches were populated by infants of the faith and could not boast of the instruction that the author of the letter to the Hebrews described as "fundamental doctrines...turning away from dead actions, faith in God, the teaching about baptisms and the laying-on of hands, about the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment (Heb 6:1-2)."
The problem of Christian infancy is not, by any means, an issue particular to evangelicals. Catholic churches have their own burden of adult infants who would choke and wretch on solid food. But within the Catholic Church, the majority of those people are, to use a detestable term, 'cradle Catholics', who have not realized the seriousness nor the cost of true discipleship to Christ.
The same cannot be said of mature converts within Catholicism. Not, at least, within the diocese of Calgary, and within any Catholic community faithful to the teaching of the Magesterium and the council regarding the RCIA. We have been given a treasure that forms treasures, and "That's what we need in our church; more of our churches need to do things like that."
posted by Eric at 10:13 PM
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