How to Handle RCIA Inquiries at Any Time of the Year
Posted on August 23rd, 2011
R.C.I.A. Inquirer: “Hello, I’d like to learn more about becoming a Catholic.”
Parish Secretary: “Sorry sir, it’s only January. Please come back in September.”
This fictitious dialogue between a parish secretary and an inquirer is something we all want to avoid. We know that our parishes and the process by which individuals join them (i.e., RCIA) are to be keenly ready to welcome newcomers at all times. We also know that the Holy Spirit prompts individuals, and individuals respond to His prompting, at unpredictable times. Finally, many parishes begin a new RCIA cycle once a year in the fall; and that cycle is designed to incrementally and systematically introduce people to Jesus Christ and the Faith of the Catholic Church. Thus, to plug people in after weeks and months have passed may cause confusion, or at least provide them with a deficient grasp and experience of the whole of our Faith.
So, what can be done? Ideally, parishes would gradually work towards implementing what is commonly called a “year-round” RCIA process. Such a model typically consists of concurrently run groups populated by individuals who find themselves in different “stages” in the initiation process. For example, an inquiry group would meet during the same time period as a catechumenate group. This way, inquirers can always be incorporated immediately into an appropriate group.
Meanwhile, due to various limitations, many parishes are not in a position to offer such a sophisticated model in the near future, yet neither want to turn inquirers away nor plug them indiscriminately into sessions which began months ago. So, what can be done? Happily, there are a number of possible solutions. What follows, in no particular order, are some practical suggestions that could help a parish do 2 things simultaneously: (1) retain a “single-track” systematic RCIA process and (2) offer something, however modest, that meets the pastoral and catechetical needs of inquirers at any point of the year:
Option A) One–on-One
Pair up an inquirer with a trusted and available parishioner who could get to know him/her and discuss things about the Catholic Faith periodically until a formal inquiry opportunity comes available. Obviously, this person could be a priest or perhaps a catechist from your RCIA team or another person who might one day become the sponsor. Conversely, a married couple or another group of individuals could invite an inquirer to join them for dinner on a biweekly or monthly basis. [Click here to read the rest of this entry… » ]
Tags: 9-Month vs. Year-Round
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How to Develop Parish Sponsors
Posted on February 25th, 2011
People don’t always know a practicing Catholic when they come to faith. Finding and matching sponsors can be the slowest skill to develop in being an R.C.I.A. coordinator. Knowing “all the parishioners” is a tall order. Sometimes a new coordinator only knows a handful of parishioners. The 1st step is to have a meeting with other team members and brainstorm a list of “potential sponsors to approach” from your parishioners. The attributes to look for include:
- Someone who has an obvious prayer life (e.g., attends daily Mass or Adoration)
- Someone who is available for weekly sessions
- Someone who displays the virtue of friendship (a good listener, open to a new friendship)
- Someone who would see sharing their faith and the faith journey of another as a great thing
- Someone who can be open to the R.C.I.A. process (meaning they don’t have their own agenda and can work within what you are doing)
- A good practice is do same gender assignments (men are assigned to men, women are assigned to women). In our day and age, it is good to have someone with similar struggles to talk to.
The next step would be to start a database of current sponsors (name, contact information and a few helpful notations). As participants receive their sacraments, ask sponsors if they would like to become a “parish sponsor”. While the parish bulletin might seem an obvious place to “put out your nets”, some caution may be called for. Not all are called to this delicate ministry and turning someone away after you have asked for volunteers can lead to hurt feelings. When I am approached by a parishioner interested in becoming a sponsor (non-solicited), I meet with them and go over the “potential sponsor form,” which is included in the appendix of the R.C.I.A. Leader’s Manual. If you conduct sponsor trainings every 2-3 months, you can be adding to your list year-round. New sponsors can attend and then be assigned as needed. Part of the agreement should be that the parish sponsor may need to be re-assigned if it isn’t a good fit. Knowing this as part of the training helps when these situations arise.
Once the sponsor sees their role as important and fulfilling, they may ask to be assigned again and again. When making assignments, try to work with certain preferences (some may ask for a participant that is unbaptized, or others will only want to sponsor a participant that will have a shorter time in R.C.I.A.). Since everybody likes to be thanked, try to include a small token of appreciation at Christmas (e.g., a Nativity ornament) and Easter (e.g., a small thank you certificate at Pentecost). It need not be expensive, but gratitude is a virtue we all can practice.
Lastly, but most importantly, pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit when making assignments. Sometimes, finding yourself awake during those quiet hours in the middle of the night can be put to good and holy use… pray that God will provide a good “match” for your R.C.I.A. participants. He is always faithful if we listen carefully, and with God’s grace, you will have an abundant group of parish sponsors.
Tags: Sponsors
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Dealing with Cohabitation in the RCIA
Posted on October 28th, 2010
There is an elephant in the room, and it may seem hard to move but it is best dealt with sooner rather than later. For one thing… it smells and there is no way to just sweep the mess under the carpet.
Cohabitation is so very common in our society that even good and holy family members are at a loss about what to say. However, in RCIA we must say something. Pope John Paul II said “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” We are there to help those that haven’t considered what they “ought” to do.
The Internet can easily give us many statistics on the damage cohabitation causes. One such example is that couples are far more likely to divorce if they cohabitate. For those coming to faith, this reason isn’t even part of the discussion. We must speak of chastity, holiness, the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and then we must speak of sin. For the RCIA coordinator, it helps to begin with the Truth. Sex before marriage is a sin, plain and simple. Just because it is common does not make it less sinful. And we don’t get to decide which sins really count and which ones don’t. God was/is clear on this one: “thou shall not commit adultery” and sex outside of marriage is adultery.
Walking the path of faith with participants takes effort and we must run into the darkness with our light. Since no sin is really private, cohabitation affects not only the couple, but their family, friends, and even their future children. Conversely, changing this will bring grace to all. Their changed example will evangelize all they encounter. [Click here to read the rest of this entry… » ]
Tags: Cohabitation
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Doing Discernments in the RCIA
Posted on October 12th, 2010
Discernments are the important road signs on the highway of RCIA.
They help the participant to reflect on where they started, where they see God calling them and where they want to be. Hopefully the answer to the last 2 points is… Heaven. These important meetings also give an opportunity for the Coordinator (usually the person conducting these) to re-visit any areas of concern that came up during the all-important intake appointment.
Those involved in the ministry of RCIA are not just there to present the materials. If that was the case, then we could just hand them a book and schedule a test at a future time. The Rite Book is always the best place to begin. In addressing the Rite of Acceptance and Welcoming, we see in RCIA 42:
“The prerequisite for making this step is that the beginnings of the spiritual life and the fundamentals of Christian teachings have taken root in the candidate. There must be evidence of the first faith…of an initial conversion and intention to change their lives and to enter into a relationship with God in Christ.”
RCIA 43 goes on to say:
“Before the Rite is celebrated, therefore, sufficient and necessary time… should be set aside to evaluate and, if necessary, to purify the candidates motives and dispositions.“
Reading on, we actually see in no uncertain terms that those involved “have the responsibility for judging the outward indications of such dispositions”. So, how do we – who live in a culture that tells us we shouldn’t “judge” – do what Holy Mother Church has asked?
Looking at the different stages of RCIA helps us to see why discernments are important and leads us in this task. [Click here to read the rest of this entry… » ]
Tags: Discernment
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Balance Your Approach
Posted on August 3rd, 2010
RCIA Is a Liturgical Process
The Christian initiation process is intended to be fundamentally liturgical. Participants need and have a right to the grace that flows from the font of the Church’s liturgy as it is made available to them as catechumens and candidates prior to full communion. This grace is an indispensable aid to conversion, and the means by which they enter into intimate union with Christ and his Church.
RCIA Is a Catechetical Process
Catechesis is the process of passing on divine revelation – the deposit of faith delivered through the Apostles and maintained by the Magisterium – to obtain the two-fold goal of understanding and change. [Click here to read the rest of this entry… » ]
Tags: Liturgical Rites, normative guidelines, Overview Chart, Preparation, RCIA Leader
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Determining the Fact and Validity of Baptism
Posted on December 22nd, 2009
Baptism is a sacrament that is not repeated, once an individual has been validly baptized. For this reason, he or she would not be baptized again upon reception into full communion with the Church (see CIC 845, 864). When a person seeks to become a Catholic, one of the Church’s responsibilities is to determine whether or not the individual has been validly baptized. Because there are different understandings of and ways to administer Baptism among Christian communions, and a variety of record-keeping practices, the Church has a responsibility to determine that an individual who believes that he or she has been baptized was, in fact, validly baptized.
The Catholic Church recognizes the validity of Baptism by other Christian ecclesial communities when the proper matter and form are used and when both the baptizing minister and the person being baptized have the proper intention (CIC 869 § 2). Water is poured or the one or be baptized is immersed in water (the matter) (CIC 854; GI 18, 22), and the minister says, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (the form) (CIC 850; GI 23). The minister’s intention simply “to baptize” and the recipient’s intention (or, if an infant or child, his or her parents’ and godparents’ intention in his or her name), simply “to be baptized” is sufficient to meet this test, even if none of the parties had a full theological understanding of the sacrament of Baptism. [Click here to read the rest of this entry… » ]
Tags: baptism
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Christian Fellowship is Foundational
Posted on July 16th, 2009
The testimony of Christian living means that fellowship and love should be tangibly present from the first contact with inquirers. Catholicism is emphatically not a “me and Jesus” form of the Christian faith. The task is not to lead people into some vague state called “being a Christian,” but to invite them to become Catholics.
Pope Paul VI has written that, for Catholics, evangelization is not “an individual and isolated act; it is one that is deeply ecclesial” (Evangelization in the Modern World, 60) and that “the community of believers… is the Church, the visible sacrament of salvation” (23). For this reason, Christian fellowship is called the foundational means of entering in to the mystery of Christ, and the RCIA ritual book stipulates that the “initiation of catechumens… takes place within the community of the faithful” (RCIA 4). Catholic evangelization is aimed at making someone a member of the Body of Christ and [Click here to read the rest of this entry… » ]
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The Digital Shepherd: Online Catholic Forums
Posted on May 26th, 2009
With the advent of the Internet, several very good and trustworthy Catholic forums have emerged online. These are online communities wherein people create “posts” and are able to hold conversations. This provides an online Catholic community that can assist the formation of your RCIA participants 24/7, at no additional financial cost to you. These forums also help RCIA participants enter into conversations with a great diversity of Catholics, around the globe, opening them up to the catholicity of the Church.
If you have any RCIA participants who are adept at using the Internet, you may want to introduce them to the forums at the website at Catholic-Convert.com. The exact web address is forums.catholic-convert.com. Upon visiting the website, you need not register to read the online conversations, but if you want to ask a question or contribute to an online conversation, simply click the Register link at the top of the website to create a free account.
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Problems with Attendance
Posted on April 23rd, 2009
Each RCIA process encounters individuals who display problems with attendance. Some express an initial interest but after a while attend RCIA sessions irregularly, or stop coming altogether. Others, who might be physically present, are not really “there.” Some people seem to relate to the RCIA process as “hoops to jump through” in order to become Catholic, which may be especially likely if the person’s Catholic spouse is pressuring him or her to convert. Others attend catechetical sessions and go through the first two gateway Rites (i.e. Acceptance or Welcoming), but do not engage in the process in any other significant way; they appear to be “going through the motions.”
Everyone involved in the Christian initiation process must always keep in mind any circumstance or motivation is good that has brought an individual to contact a parish to find out more about the Catholic Church, and that throughout the Christian initiation process, God’s graces are poured out in abundance on each person. In general, the leader and team must provide opportunities for participants to respond to the Lord through a powerful proclamation of the Good News, joy-filled catechesis, participation in reverent and beautiful liturgies, opportunities for heartfelt prayer, compelling testimonies, and service opportunities. All of these in effect “till the soil” and “scatter the seed” which God will then cause to grow in the participants’ hearts and minds.
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Using Small Groups in the Catechumenal Process
Posted on February 4th, 2009
RCIA catechetical sessions are not meant solely to transmit information like the convert classes of old. The purpose of catechesis is to initiate and foster the process of conversion of heart and entry into the mystery of Christ. Therefore, in addition to teaching the truths of the faith in catechetical sessions, it is important to provide time in small groups to give participants a forum where they can feel comfortable.
Small groups enable catechumens and candidates to express how they have understood the truths they have heard. They are then able to articulate their initial responses: perceptions, insights, agreements, connections with other teachings, assent, thanksgivings… as well as concerns, reservations, difficulties, and disagreements. The dialogue that small groups foster will allow for participants to experience a deepening of their own conversion as well as to consider how they might apply a particular teaching to their own life situation.
Although small groups are not mentioned in the RCIA ritual book, small groups are exceedingly helpful to participants’ spiritual journeys because they call for dialogue and response.
Genuine catechesis therefore is that catechesis which helps to perceive the action of God throughout the formative journey. It encourages a climate of listening, of thanksgiving and of prayer. It looks to the free response of persons and it promotes active participation among those to be catechized. (General Directory for Catechesis, n. 145)
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Tags: Small Groups
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