Don Roberts has been the RCIA Team Leader for the Parish Community of St. Joseph in Belmont, NH, since 2012. In the 1980s, he and his late wife Pat introduced the process to their suburban Albany, NY, parish. After a 15-year stay in Virginia, they returned to RCIA in their retirement in New Hampshire. Don […]
We’re flexible: How our parish does year-round RCIA
Here at TeamRCIA, we spend a lot of time talking about the inadequacy adapting the catechumenate into a school model. Using a classroom paradigm is so common in parishes that many RCIA teams think it is the norm. However, if you read the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults carefully, you will find no reference
The school model is a chokehold on the RCIA
Introduction to the 23d and 24th Sundays: We have finished reading Matthew’s narrative about how deep faith in Jesus is the only way of entrance into the Church. For two Sundays now we read Jesus’s discourse on what life in the Church is to be like. 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Background: This Sunday’s part
Reflection Questions for RCIA Seekers — 23rd-26th Sundays in Ordinary Time, Year A
Jess Panlener is on the Discipleship Team at St. Charles in Hartland, WI, outside of Milwaukee, where she is the RCIA (Becoming Fully Catholic) director, baptism coordinator, and adult and family minister. She holds a master’s degree in historical theology from Marquette University, but she is a Wisconsin Badger through and through. Jess and her
Jesus’s timing is perfect—one parish’s experience of year-round RCIA
Q: Is there a possibility that a seeker would come to faith before the Easter Vigil… and how do you proceed with that scenario? A: This is a great question. The answer is a bit complicated, but if we dig a little deeper into the question, the answer becomes simpler. There is a caveat however.
Can RCIA seekers celebrate their sacraments outside of the Easter Vigil?
The renewal of the catechumenate is key to the renewal of our parishes. That was one of the points made in a recently released Vatican document, “The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community in the Service of the Evangelizing Mission of the Church” (Congregation for the Clergy, July 20, 2020). Given the time it takes
How the RCIA will renew our parishes after the pandemic
Inspired by an angel, Philip went out onto the road to preach. While on the road, he met a court official from Ethiopia. The Ethiopian was reading from the prophet Isaiah, but he didn’t understand what he was reading. Philip began to explain it to him and also to proclaim the good news about Jesus.
Why a year-round RCIA is important for baptized seekers
Introduction for 18th to 22nd Sundays: We have finished reading Matthew’s Sermon on Parables and move now to a crucial narrative section dealing with the Church as First-fruits of God’s Kingdom/Reign. Repeatedly we will see how the crucial step to enter that Kingdom/Reign is a deep faith in Jesus, a faith that rejects all other
Reflection Questions for RCIA Seekers — 18th-22nd Sundays in Ordinary Time, Year A
One of the challenges of being quarantined is how to draw more seekers to our parish and our initiation process. Strategies for “marketing” ourselves are not different in principle during a pandemic than they are when life is normal. However, some of what we might have done in the past becomes even more critical when
The key to RCIA marketing is storytelling
Let’s be honest—many of our parishes do a poor job of connecting with and communicating with their communities. Not just with regular their parishioners, but especially with those whom we want to attract and bring into our communities—our seekers, our catechumens, and our candidates. One of the inadvertent gifts of COVID-19 was bring this challenge
