As a way to move to a year-round process, I recommended last time that you should throw out your syllabus. And while I feel there’s good reasons for doing this, it does create something of a problem: What do I do now? How do I convey to our catechumens and candidates everything they need to know about the Catholic faith? It’s a legitimate question, and deserves a legitimate response: So here it is: Let the liturgical seasons and the Sunday readings be your guide.
Our job as RCIA catechists is to bring our catechumens and candidates into the active life of the parish, and that all begins with Sunday Mass.
Mass is a visible expression of our faith
As Catholics, attending Mass on Sundays is the most visible and consistent expression of our faith. So it stands to reason that those seeking to join us should follow that same rubric. This is why RCIA paragraph 83 states that “From the very beginning…catechumens should be taught to keep holy the Lord’s Day.” Chances are that attending a Mass is what got many of your catechumens and candidates interested in the Catholic faith. Attending Mass not only allows them the opportunity to engage with the parish community, but it also serves as a living “classroom” for the Christian life, as embodied by the celebration of the liturgical seasons and through the Liturgy of the Word.
Letting the liturgical seasons serve as your guide not only keeps with the spirit of RCIA paragraphs 81-89, but when taken as a whole, a year with the Sunday readings takes us through the entire Jesus story from which can be drawn all the important teachings of the church. This point alone would seem to necessitate not just a year-round catechumenate, but one that can run for an extended period. This also explains why the National Statues for the Catechumenate states in paragraph 6 that the period of the catechumenate should “extend for at least one year” And mind you, that’s a far more modest understanding compared to RCIA paragraph 7.2 which states that the period of the catechumenate “may last for several years.”
Balancing “how to live Catholicism” and “how to learn about Catholicism” in RCIA
I noted last time that the RCIA is not about “learning” Catholicism, it’s about “living” Catholicism. To that someone commented that “you can’t live what you don’t know.” It’s a fair point. If one is to follow Christ, one needs to get to know Christ and his church. But that’s not done effectively through a series of sessions on the catechism and Catholic doctrine. Rather, through the RCIA process we are looking to play the long game by allowing Christ to reveal himself through our people and our stories… that is through the Mass, which finds it’s themes through the liturgical seasons and the readings that correspond to that cycle.
Not only does following the seasons keep the seekers in sync with the rest of the parish (and the church), when you use the Sunday readings in your catechesis it has the added benefit of giving them something familiar when they hear those same readings again at Mass. And more often than not they have the opportunity to correlate what they might hear in the homily to what they discuss in their session.
Now for those who complain that this approach doesn’t cover everything they need to know with regard to Catholic doctrine and traditions, I would ask you to consider that the liturgical year, when viewed as a whole, does in fact reveal all the mysteries and traditions of our faith. The themes and the rhythm of the seasons, as informed by the themes and the flow of the Sunday readings, form the basis from which you can begin your session planning (not “lesson” planning). In fact, my experience has been that by following the liturgical calendar, it makes session planning much simpler… One informs the other.
Engaging the Word and Liturgical Seasons in your Parish RCIA
And when it comes to the Sunday readings, consider also: When the inquirers become catechumens, they are formally presented with the gospel. If they don’t have one already, we may also give them a Bible. This is both symbolic and practical. Symbolically we recognize their desire to follow the way of Christ, and by presenting them with the gospel, we are showing them the gateway to Christ. Practically, we expect that the catechumens will actually read the Word of God. With our help, they will learn how to read scripture liturgically with a focus on the Sunday readings.
You might be saying this all sounds nice in theory, but there’s no way this will work in my parish. I get that. In fact, that’s where my parish was several years ago. I’m not just sharing theories and ideals here. The point of these articles is to share with you how we did it — how we moved to a year-round process, and how letting the liturgical year and the lectionary become our guide actually facilitated that process.
So how exactly do we make this work? Next month in, Part 2, I will provide some practical tips and suggestions that worked in my parish. But now it’s your turn.
Share your story
Have you moved to a year-round process? What were your challenges? How did you overcome them? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Photo by Stephan Seeber | Unsplash
Our parish moved to a year-round catechumenate several years ago and even our diocese has encouraged its parishes to do the same. However, we still have parishes that advertise on their outside billboards that “classes” begin in August or September. We put this in our bulletin several times a year. So we have people come to us in Aug. or Sept. Most of them turn out to be candidates for full communion. So we meet with them and explain the process and then are welcomed into the group. Recently we had two sessions going at one time, a new group and the group preparing for reception this year. We decide to put them together for a session because we were going to be talking about Lent and it went so well and they all liked each other that we decided not to separate them after that. It has gone very well. We have a small team and we don’t do it perfectly but so far it has worked for us.
We use Foundations in Faith to help set the theme for each week. Also, we use Living Faith for a daily devotional.
We implemented the year round Catechumenate last July. We use Foundations in Faith as a guide for topics related to the upcoming Sunday readings. So, our program is liturgically based.
We have a team of 6 presenters, of which one of the six runs the Purification and Enlightenment phase, and another of the six runs Mystagogy.
Challenges: Always in need of volunteers, ss RCIA Coordinator, I am looking to enlarge the team of presenters to eight, to better cover the periods when two of us need to be in different rooms with people in different phases of the program.
Our first set of catechumens recently join our program. So now, I am in the process of building a Dismissal Team to handle the Sunday Dismissals of the Catechumens, once they go through the Rite of Acceptance in a month or so from now.
We don’t have a year round program yet but it is something for us to strive for. The best way to do catechesis in a program like that is to take the Sunday readings and teach from them. That gives the participants a connection between what they are learning and what the Church is doing in the Eucharist, the source and summit of the Christian faith. Connecting them with a family is a good way to do it to spread the load where they not only learn material content but also learn how to live as a Catholic family.
We have been running on ongoing RCIA journey for the last 7 years here in Singapore. Having done the cohort based RCIA for a few years prior, the joy of the ongoing RCIA is so much richer. Inquirers are invited to come to the sessions as and when they inquired at the church office throughout the year, the readings, church colours, collect and homily all matches up for the catechumens’ lesson! At every RCIA night, there will be 2 sessions running (for inquirers and for catechumens), and from Lent to Pentecost, we run an addition session for the Elect/Neophytes for their P&E and Mystagogy session.
We use the Foundations in Faith series which links up the Sunday Breaking of Word with the corresponding lessons nicely.
God bless.
We run a hybrid model, which has been successful IMO. We run inquiry sessions year round on Wednesday evenings open to all, and a little later that evening a couple of times a year (spring and fall) a series of 15 sessions that provide a more traditional sacramental catechesis based overview of the faith. We are in the south and get a lot of Christians from non-sacramental, loosely liturgical traditions and I really do believe we need some structured teaching. We use weekly readings in both inquiry sessions and the teaching sessions, though, and I think it is vital that you connect inquirers to the rhythms of the liturgical year. . Another challenge with just using a seasonal, year round approach (for me) is that we may very well want to do reception into full communion several times a year; most of our baptized folks probably should not need to experience a full liturgical year in formation.