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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Dispositions and Attitudes of the RCIA Leader
Posted on November 21st, 2008
Just as the Christian initiation process is intended to cause and facilitate a profound interior change in participants, the RCIA leader may have to undergo an “attitude adjustment” to be successful in managing the process. Here, we’ve listed some pointers to assist the leader.
♦ Expect the Christian initiation process to be difficult. The leader is doing one of the most important jobs on earth, and Satan will actively oppose it.
♦ Avoid an “I’m running a program” mentality. Administration is a secondary aspect to the leader’s calling, necessary only to serve the process of conversion as the participants experience it.
♦ Delegate everything that can be delegated. Satan can derail the Christian initiation process by ensuring that a good leader is frantically busy.
♦ Make relationships strategically. This includes listening to all those who are also engaged in the parish’s Christian initiation process, because people listen to those who listen to them.
♦ Think collaboratively and deferentially. Whether the parish RCIA leader is a pastor, another member of the clergy, or a paid or volunteer layperson, that leader cannot be “territorial.” Lay leaders must always, at all times, in every way, respect the office of Holy Orders; clergy, for their part, must respect the collaborative nature of the Christian initiation process envisioned in the ritual book (see, for example, RCIA 43, 75.1). Whether cleric or lay, the RCIA leader must seek to be the best servant in the entire catechumenal process. [Click here to read the rest of this entry… » ]
Tags: RCIA Leader
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