In Need of Book Recommendations for Sister considering RCIA

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chloebelle

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Hello! I’m a pretty fresh convert (2017) myself. This forum was instrumental in that. Thank you all very kindly. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

My beloved step sister, who had a completely atheist/secular upbringing, has recently been having dreams of a religious nature, which is jarring for her because she has essentially 0 background knowledge on Christianity. These dreams have moved her to look for answers. She’s always been curious and we’ve had a little dialogue on the topic, but recently she’s been becoming more and more curious, telling me she’d like to attend RCIA in the summer when the new session at my parish starts. I’m wanting to get her a book to start with. I was hoping I could get something that we could read together (both of us read a section on our own, meet up for coffee and discuss it once a week type of thing) and get conversation flowing that way.

However, I’m struggling to find something that’s geared toward someone who doesn’t have a background of any kind. I know from our past conversations that she feels very overwhelmed by details and, things that to us are common knowledge are not to her. Many of the books I’ve seen are geared toward Protestants, and work on the assumption that the person is already some form of Christian. I’m looking for something that’s more broad-strokes, covering the basics, that’s still from a Catholic perspective. Thanks in advance!
 
Trent Horn’s “Why We’re Catholic” is good and not overwhelming.

Many of the apologetics books that will be suggested may be offputting, so, read them before you gift them. Apologetics need to come after she has learned about Jesus and a relationship with Him.

Sheed’s “To Know Christ Jesus” is a good one.

A subscription to Formed.org will give her access to books and videos that she can digest at her own speed.
 
I had someone like this start RCIA and she was lost. The group would talk about prayer, for example, and she had no experience with the concept and didn’t understand why someone would do it. The woman who led the inquiry part of the process didn’t know what to do with her, so I started meeting with her individually.

I could answer her questions and talk to her about my experiences with God. Later we moved on to an overview of salvation history. We started with the creation story in Genesis and kept reading about how God created different things and “it was good.” We talked about how the earth was good and people were good and h how wonderful it was that God gave us these things. Finally she said, “yeah, that’s all nice, but I don’t believe the world was created in seven days.” .I surprised her when I agreed that I didn’t believe it either, but I still believe that God was behind it all and it’s all good.

We went on to talk about other events and people. She needed to know who Abraham was, who Moses was, who David was. Since these were totally outside her knowledge, we went over all of them since they would come up later and keep her understand how Jesus fit into the story.

I don’t know if this might give you some ideas you can use.
 
chloebelle said:
I’m wanting to get her a book to start with. I was hoping I could get something that we could read together (both of us read a section on our own, meet up for coffee and discuss it once a week type of thing) and get conversation flowing that way.

However, I’m struggling to find something that’s geared toward someone who doesn’t have a background of any kind.
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I strongly suggest “A Pattern for Life”

It’s Carmelite in nature, but very applicable to day to day living for anyone.
 
Wonderful to hear this!
I’m so glad you have your step sister to journey with now.
I hope this Christmas will be extra special for both of you.
God bless.
 
I used :
The RCIA Journey
Idiots guide for Catholicism
Catholicism & Reason
Why We’re Catholic
 
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I also recommend Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn one of my favorites,i also recommend surprised by truth by Patrick Madrid and The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic:how engaging 1% of Catholics could change the world by Matthew Kelly also Rediscovering Jesus by Matthew Kelly and Crossing the Tiber by Stephen K. Ray and The Biblical Roots of the Mass by Thomas J. Nash 1
 
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Catholicism for Dummies is good. But remember that the Dummies books are best used as reference books, not necessarily for reading “cover to cover.” Any time there is any word or phrase or concept she doesn’t know about or understand – boom, open it up.
 
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I was brought up atheist and converted at 32.

The book that convinced me of God was C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity.

That book fell down for me a bit when it argued that Jesus was God, but a book called Who Is This Jesus? (by a Protestant named Michael Greene) got me over the hump.

Neither of those Protestant authors argued for a particular Christian church, and I was naturally drawn to what even my atheist dad recognized as the first Christian church: the Catholic Church.

Later, Karl Keating’s Catholicism and Fundamentalism gave me reasons to be Catholic.
 
I would also recommend Mere Christianity as it seems like she is in most need of a primer. As others have said, it doesn’t specifically direct people towards the Catholic Church (it actually tries not to direct them towards any specific denomination), but since she is already thinking of attending RCIA I don’t think that’s a huge concern.
 
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