If your church community is implementing restrictions for gathering during these next several weeks, we’d like to offer some ideas on how you can still help your elect celebrate the Scrutinies and the Presentations as they prepare for baptism. Click the video below.
Summary outline: See below for a timestamped summary outline if you want to skip to specific parts of the video.
And here is a video on how to handle the RCIA rites if your community is unable to gather for the Triduum.
As always, we continue to pray for you and your ministry to your communities. We especially pray for those who are sick and all who are caring for them. Even in difficult times, may we always remember that Christ is present wherever two or three are gathered in his name.
Summary outline
0:50: Scrutinies are not optional
Only the bishop may dispense from one or two (RCIA 20 and 34.3). If the bishop has already dispensed the faithful from all liturgy until further notice, we might presume a dispensation from one or two scrutinies is granted, but you will want to check with you bishop’s office.
2:27: If you cannot gather for Mass for the Scrutinies
A small group of celebrant, elect, and godparents is enough during this crisis outside of Sunday Mass, if that is allowed by your health and diocesan officials. The Scrutiny may take place on a weekday Mass if feasible and permitted.
4:00: If no kind of gathering is possible for the Scrutinies
Provide the reading citations and at least the intercession and prayers for use at home. The elect are used to reflection and faith sharing and can do this with those in the household.
7:20: If you are moving the Scrutinies to a different time of year
They should still be celebrated one week apart from each other, about three weeks before Baptism. Whenever they are celebrated, the required Lectionary texts (RCIA 146 [USA]) are used as are the prayers from the Roman Missal and ritual text.
8:14: The Presentations of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer
The two presentations may follow the pattern above: weekday Mass or Liturgy of the Word of God or at home. The presentations cannot be combined with a Scrutiny. Only a priest and not a deacon presides. If the parish has the capability, perhaps it can take place in an online gathering with all of the elect.
9:10: Presentations are oral
Both presentations are oral. No printed text is handed over. It is an oral handling over (and a receiving by hearing) of two beloved texts that summarize what we believe and how we pray.
10:27: Gestures in the Scrutinies
Laying on hands is required in the Scrutinies, but it is on the head. Be sure to wash hands before and after the liturgy.
11:48: Who can preside?
The Scrutiny may take place within a Liturgy of the Word led by a priest or deacon. The Presentations may be celebrated in a Liturgy of the Word led by a priest.
I didn’t realize presentations of the Creed and Lord’s Prayer was reserved for the priest. Where can I find that information in the Rite of RCIA?
Hi Gary. It is what is not in the RCIA that is important. There is no explicit provision for a deacon to preside at the presentations (as there is for the scrutinies; see RCIA 145).
The presentations are presumed to take place within Mass (RCIA 157, 178) at which a priest or a bishop would preside. The deacon is identified as an assisting minister (RCIA 160, 180).
And, in the case of the Presentation of the Lord’s Prayer, the priest—not the deacon—reads the gospel. The proclamation of the gospel is the presentation.
If we found ourselves in a situation where Triduum celebrations are limited/suspended in any capacity, is there possibility of welcoming the elect into the fullness of initiation at a time that is NOT the Easter Vigil? Is there a plan for extraordinary circumstances?
Hi Nicole. Please see this video: https://teaminitiation.com/2020/03/rcia-the-triduum-and-coronavirus/
Thank you, Diana and Nick, for this informational video. As you know now, further restrictions have been put on how we gather (or don’t!) during this time. Here at St Raymond in Downey our pastor agreed we could celebrate the first scrutiny within the mass. With the “no more than 250” gathered, a young adult brother and sister, we were able to have their godparents and another person in the front pew, because they were all family members. This week as I informed team members, elect and candidates that we now are not able to celebrate mas, our pastor agreed we can come on the grounds of the church on Sundays and gather in our usual space (St Patrick Room you saw when you did an institute for us) and celebrate a Liturgy of the Word and a “modified” scrutiny rite, if such a thing is possible. We will have 9 people, two catechists, two elect and 5 candidates. We have been told we cannot do the laying on of hands because they are being strict about “social distancing.” Also the godparents won’t be present because they are grandparents of the elect and in their 70’s. We are going to meet this way through these weeks, not knowing what will happen. Archbishop Gomez has notified the faithful that information on how to proceed with Holy Week will come no later than March 27. It is an extraordinary situation, and if we look at it with the proper attitude, an opportunity for unexpected graces, which all of us have already experienced, is possible. Thanks to your video I will consult the Roman Missal for the prayers around the rite I already have in template form for our presiders. Have a blessed Lenten and Easter season, Thank you again, Sandy
In the Toronto Archdiocese, as of March 17/20, we are not celebrating Mass at all – not even in small groups. This Corona Virus is easily spread to small numbers – who will take it home and spread to others. Our Cardinal has dispensed the catechumens from the Scrutinies. I think you need to rethink this advice to have communities gather in small groups for celebrations. We are encouraging our parishioners to watch daily Mass on television and to keep themselves safe. We can all celebrate with joy when the crisis passes.
God bless.
I’ve been running into this claim that “the bishop has dispensed us from all the Scrutinies,” and I wonder if you have any information about whether that is canonically possible.
As I read the rite, and the ritual book is liturgical law, the bishop may dispense from one or two Scrutinies, but not all three.
If at least one Scrutiny cannot be celebrated, I believe that the proper response is that Baptism needs to be delayed until it is possible to celebrate this rite, even if this means celebrating outside of Easter or even outside of the Easter season.
There is an exception only in cases of danger of death. And while a pandemic could cause someone to be in danger of death, this is not the case unless that person is sick. The public health necessity of not gathering in groups is a safety measure, not an indication that death is immanent for any particular individual. The exceptional provision of celebrating all the rites together, as is the way in danger of death, would have to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Some bishops seem to think that they can decide anything they want, about everything. This is simply not true. These rites are not all within the bishop’s prerogative to change. It is laid out in the ritual text that way on purpose, to assure that the shape of the ritual is respected.
Having said this, however, I wonder if you have information to the contrary. Can a bishop dispense from all of the Scrutinies? Or is this, as I suspect, sloppy thinking and an error on his part?
Hi Rita. I don’t know of any provision that allows the bishop to dispense from all of the scrutinies. In many dioceses, the liturgies of the Triduum have been suspended, which, in effect, delays baptism. So it seems to me that at least one scurtiny could be celebrated once the new date of baptism has been established.
I worry a bit that some bishops and other pastoral leaders adopt a tone that the scrutinies are burdens to be endured instead of rites to be celebrated. The scrutinies are the primary formation of the elect in during their time of purification and enlightenment. It is where and when the elect to encounter and know Christ as the one who will be the refreshment for whatever they are thirsting for, who will heal them and be a light in their darkness, who will bring them to eternal life. Especially in a time like this, why would we want to deprive them of that comfort?
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
We are celebrating the Scrutiny through zoom since we can not gather even as a small community. Our priest will not be able to preside but The RCIA team will proclaim the readings, break open the word and celebrated the scrutiny. From my many years working in the diocese of Great Falls Billings when a community gathered for Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest the Lay Leader of Prayer lead the scrutiny. I don’t believe it is correct to say only a priest or deacon can preside over the scrutiny.
Hi Michael. See RCIA 145.