Q: Could you give us examples of how the whole parish acts as the minister to welcome the candidates/catechumens and share the faith with them? What does it look like? How can we help the whole parish understand this mission? A: When we want to welcome a seeker into our parish family, it looks a […]
Q&A: How do we help the whole parish understand their RCIA mission?
Most parishes in the United States, Canada, and Australia will be celebrating the sacraments of initiation with the elect in the coming weeks or months. Since this celebration is happening outside of the Easter Vigil, there is some confusion as to what ritual to use for initiation. The normative rite to use would be the
What is the correct RCIA rite to use for baptizing the elect outside the Easter Vigil?
Like all of you I’ve been hard at work at finding ways to keep our initiation processes going while our churches have been closed and social distancing has become the norm. But even as challenging as that can be, the greater challenge has been working with those elect and candidates who were expecting to be
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Managing expectations in a changing world
Trinity Sunday Background: Grace, love, fellowship—these words from the end of this Sunday’s selection from 2 Corinthians provide the common threads that runs throughout all the readings. Today’s focus is not on the inner relationships among the Persons of the Trinity but upon their relationships with us in both Old and New Testaments. As the
Preparing seekers during summer Ordinary Time, Cycle A – part one
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults envisions the initiation process as a journey of faith (see RCIA 1). As soon as a seeker takes the first step on that journey, the reality of time changes. This shift in time, however, is not always obvious to either the seeker or the parish initiation team. Often,
Two kinds of time in an ongoing (year-round) initiation process
At our recent Community Chat on moving to a year-round initiation process, it seemed there were two types of comments. On the one hand, lots of folks were excited about moving to a continuous initiation process and couldn’t wait to get started. On the other hand, while also excited, other folks were a bit stumped
Rethinking the core Catholic content as we move to ongoing initiation (year-round RCIA)
During a recent TeamRCIA Community Chat, several questions came up about celebrating the scrutinies outside the usual times. Let’s take a look at some issues that parishes may be experiencing. First, let’s recall the purpose of the scrutinies. The scrutinies are meant to uncover, then heal, all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the
Celebrating the RCIA scrutinies outside the usual times
I’ve seen a lot of pictures lately of priests standing in front of homes blessing the members of the household as they gather on the front porch or steps. I think that’s great! But we don’t have to wait for the pastor to come by to celebrate blessings. Blessings come in many, many forms. A
RCIA blessings in the time of coronavirus
Many of us who guide and form spiritual seekers are hoping for a return to normal as soon as the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. But normal probably won’t look like what we are used to. The effects of the pandemic have permanently ruptured “the way we’ve always done it.” For the most part, that is
RCIA will never be the same again
Did you miss the April 21 TeamRCIA Community Chat on how to schedule the initiation rites outside of Easter? No worries! We’ve got you covered. Here’s the recording. Please share it with your colleagues in ministry. We had over 900 people signed up, and over 600 people from all around the world attended the one-hour
Community Chat – Scheduling initiation outside of Easter
