Over the course of this series we’ve given you a lot of ideas and advice on moving your RCIA process to a year-round model… but none of those efforts can bear fruit without recognizing that the RCIA, by its very nature, is an individual journey. For this reason we need to focus on forming the […]
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Making it an individual journey
If you go to any parish website in North America, you will get the very strong impression that children’s faith is formed in a classroom. Parish websites list expectations describing what children are to have learned by the time they reach each grade level. If you were to actually visit one of these parishes, you
Why children in the RCIA need a community, not a classroom
I once overheard a pastoral minister say that she was working with a family who wanted to have their child baptized. The child was six-and-a-half years old. “We got her in just under the wire,” the pastoral worker said — meaning the child was under seven years old and therefore baptized as an infant. She
Pastoral principles for children in the RCIA
If you’ve been following this series, you know that we recommend throwing out your syllabus and using the liturgical seasons of the Church as your guide to catechesis. So… what might that actually look like? Here are some practical ideas: Don’t plan your schedule in a bubble A big part of becoming Catholic is becoming
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Let the liturgical seasons be your guide, part 2
I’ve heard many RCIA team members confess to me that they failed because a catechumen just never “got it.” I’ve felt this too with catechumens who didn’t turn out to be as committed to discipleship as I hoped. I’ve shared war stories with pastors and RCIA directors about the “post-Easter drop-off,” when many newly initiated
Have we actually tried the RCIA?
Last September, Marcy seemed so relieved. When her pastor convinced her to take over the leadership of the parish’s RCIA program, she was worried that she didn’t know enough to do the job. “All the topics are already chosen,” Fr. Jonas had reassured. “All you have to do is find speakers to cover them.” He
Is the fear of being wrong controlling your RCIA?
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
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Let the liturgical seasons be your guide (Part 1)
After team formation, the next step to moving to a year round process is simple: Throw out your syllabus. Hear me out on this one… Have you noticed there’s not much out there when it comes to an “off the shelf” program for the RCIA? There’s a reason for that… but more on that in
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Throw out your syllabus!
What is your RCIA team’s goal for the catechumenate? If a Martian were to land in a random parish on Easter Monday, he might draw a false conclusion based on what he observes during the Period of Postbaptismal Catechesis or Mystagogy. Baptism forgives sins In a given parish, the Martian might conclude that the purpose
Four Martians walk into an RCIA…
Someone e-mailed recently to tell us about a high-school-age catechumen who had been denied baptism at a previous parish. The reason she could not be baptized, she was told, is because she failed the RCIA test. The test was a written exam, presumably about Catholic doctrine, that was more difficult than a college entrance exam,
