The Catechumenal Process is PASTORAL…

Pastoral Components of the Christian Initiation Process:
From Initial Motivation to Firm Conviction to a Catholic Worldview

A ‘Person to Person’ Endeavor
The pastoral work of the catechumenal process is accomplished through the love and labor of many people, including the following:

• Bishop and Clergy
• Hospitality folks
• Sponsors
• Small Group Leaders
• Intercessors
• Catechists
• Parish members
• Facilitators for Breaking Open the Word

This pastoral work is a people to person endeavor – all the people impacting this one person for the Lord.  Pastoring involves both information and formation.  By instruction and by example, the catechumens and candidates learn who God is, what he wants, and how to follow him as a member of the Christian community.  Through the pastoral attention of others, participants are informed about him and formed in him.

Why “pastor” (from their initial motivation to firm conviction)?
The pastoral work of the Church is necessary:
John 14:5                 Lord, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?
Acts 8:31                 How can I understand unless someone guides me?
Romans 8:26            For we do not know how to pray as we ought.
Romans 10:14          And how are they to hear without a preacher?

Pastoring is necessary because they don’t know how to live.  The community of the faithful is to provide information, formation, and a sincere and open witness to the life of charity.

Confidentiality in the Process
Confidentiality is a crucial prerequisite to and hallmark of pastoring in the catechumenal process.

• Members of the team must be people in whom the candidates and catechumens can confide
• The conversion process may involve crises and battling with very personal and painful issues
• The principle that should govern pastoral activity is the virtue of prudence (CCC 1806)
• Obtaining intercessors to pray for troubled participants is vital; this does not necessitate revealing much information

Use of the Adult Learning Model
The adult learning model in relationship to pastoring includes:

• Creating an atmosphere comprised of adult Catholics who are prepared to accept inquirers where they are, and to open their lives to them;
• Using small groups to foster relationships and dialogue;
• Providing  witness to the Christian life so that the application of a session is immediately evident – avoid ‘stacking-up’ information that adults cannot make use of in their lives – always connect right belief with right practice;
• Giving attention to providing liturgical experiences and opportunities for apostolic service in the context of the Christian community;
• Planning for the fact that participants will have difficulties and crises; such situations are often a sign of developing conversion.

The Period of the Precatechumenate
During this period inquirers “should receive help and attention” so that they may:

• Purify their intentions
• Clarify their desire to cooperate with God’s grace (see RCIA 38)

Whatever their original reason for beginning, it is a good one.  It must be cultivated and encouraged so that they can come to the conviction that they cannot imagine living the rest of their lives outside of the Church.  Changes in lifestyle should accompany this period as folks turn away from sinful patterns and turn toward God in Christ.  The following signs should mark this period:

• Evidence of first faith manifested in repentance
• Interest in a prayer life
• Growing desire to study and learn what God has revealed
• A sense of the Church (see RCIA 42)

This is the time to include many varied testimonies of faith and the Christian life.  It is also the time to connect inquirers to parishioners who could become friends.  Sponsors should be chosen with care taken to train them to be companions on the journey.  Intercession for the individual inquirers should begin.

The Period of the Catechumenate
During this period the example and guidance of godparents, sponsors, team, and the entire parish is crucial because it is from them that the catechumens and candidates learn (RCIA 75.2):

• To turn more readily to God in prayer
• To bear witness to the faith
• In all things to keep their hopes set on Christ
• To begin to recognize and to follow supernatural inspiration in their deeds
• To practice love of neighbor, even at the cost of self-renunciation
• To be strengthened in faith and conversion

The Church is like a mother to the catechumens and candidates and so we must take steps to know each person well, making room for them in our hearts and lives:

• Love and confidentiality must be the hallmarks of those caring for the catechumens and candidates
• Encouragement, gentle direction, example, and advice, well placed by the catechumenal team, will greatly aid the conversion process

The Period of Purification and Enlightenment
The Penitential Rite (see RCIA 459-472), the Scrutinies and the Exorcisms illustrate the pastoral focus of this period:  The guidelines (RCIA 141) states that the scrutinies are celebrated in order to:

• Deliver the elect from the power of sin and Satan
• Protect them against temptation
• Give them strength in Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life (see John 14:6)

These rites, therefore, should:

• Complete the conversion of the elect
• Deepen their resolve to hold fast to Christ
• To carry out their decision to love God above all

RCIA 142 explains that before they receive the Sacraments of Initiation:
…the elect must have the intention of achieving an intimate knowledge of Christ and His Church, and they are expected particularly to progress in genuine self-knowledge through serious examination of their lives and true repentance.

The Period of Mystagogy and the Neophyte Year
In this period of the catechumenal process, the neophytes must be welcomed and helped to continue in their journey that is the Christian life.  RCIA 244 states:  This is a time for the community and the neophytes together to grow in deepening their grasp of the paschal mystery and in making it part of their lives through…

• Meditation on the Gospel
• Sharing in the Eucharist
• Participating in the works of charity

To strengthen the neophytes as they begin to walk in newness of life, the community of the faithful, their godparents, and their pastors should give them thoughtful and friendly help.

National Statutes for the Catechumenate, 24:  After the immediate mystagogy or postbaptismal catechesis during the Easter season, the program for the neophytes should extend until the anniversary of Christian initiation, with at least monthly assemblies of the neophytes for their deeper Christian formation and incorporation into the full life of the community.

RCIA 250:  On the anniversary of their Baptism the neophytes should be brought together in order to give thanks to God, to share with one another their spiritual experiences, and to renew their commitment.

RCIA 251:  To show his pastoral concern for these new members of the Church, the bishop, particularly if he was unable to preside at the Sacraments of Initiation himself, should arrange, if possible, to meet the recently baptized at least once in the year and to preside at a celebration of the Eucharist with them.

Toward a Catholic Worldview
On Catechesis in Our Time, 20:  Catechesis aims, therefore, at developing understanding of the mystery of Christ in the light of God’s Word, so that the whole of a person’s humanity is impregnated by that word.  Changed by the working of grace into a new creature, the Christian thus sets himself to follow Christ and learns more and more with the Church to think like him, to judge like him, to act in conformity to his commandments, and to hope as he invites us to.

A  Catholic worldview takes years to develop.  For neophytes, with the support, accountability, and witness provided by those in their faith community are essential.  The key components of a Catholic worldview are:

• Recognizing of Christ as Lord of all history and of each life through an understanding of God’s plan for salvation
• Holding general principles (moral and doctrinal absolutes) and applying them to  particular situations
• Recognizing the sacramental reality of creation – God is with us.
• Having a strong incarnational perspective – God works through human nature and through material things
• Recognizing the redemptive value  of suffering
• Living a life of hope, directed to the last things

Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God. (CCC 1691, quoting St. Leo the Great)

Laying Down Our Lives…

The purpose of these links is to provide a set of sources to which those working in RCIA ministry can go to prayerfully consider the nature of being at the service of the Holy Spirit’s work of converting souls to Christ and His Church.  The essence of the pastoral work of clergy and laity in the RCIA process is that of being gentle witnesses and offering spiritual sacrifices “for the sake of His body, the Church.” (Col 1:24)

Pope John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris

Pope John Paul II, Pastoral Care of Divorced and Remarried

St. Cyprian, The Good of Patience

St. Louis de Montfort, Letters to Friends of the Cross

Fr. Paul O’Sullivan, How to Avoid Purgatory

G.K. Chesterton, The Catholic Church and Conversion

John Saward, The Grace of God in Courtesy