More On Rcia

[palmas85]

I’ve posted several times on the state of a friend of mines RCIA experience. Since my last post, things have generally been pretty good as far as I know, but in this time of the year, Christmas and New Years, things changed somewhat, and he once again asked me for advice. Here is the situation.

During Advent, his group continued to meet and attend Mass together, The week before Christmas, they did not meet, and were told that it was optional for them to attend Mass on Christmas, due to the crowds that would undoubtedly be there. There was no group meeting for the Christmas Masses. Last week in their weekly meeting he asked the group leader why attending Christmas Mass was optional since Christmas is a Holy Day of Obligation and would they be meeting as a group for January 1. . He says, and I don’t know if he 's reporting this correctly, that she said, there really is nothing that should be considered a day of obligation and that a person should be joyful to attend the Eucharistic assembly and never go due to a sense of duty and obligation. She added that such rigid thinking was pre-Vatican II in nature and should be avoided.

They are not meeting as a group on January 1 either.

Questions: has something happened that I don’t know about? I thought we still had Holy Days of Obligation. Has that changed?

 

[mosher]

You are correct - the person that he spoke with concerning Obligatory celebrations of the Eucharist should not be teaching an RCIA class. While they are correct in saying that we should go because we love the Mass that does not negate the fact that we also have a duty and obligation to go on the proscribed days.

 

[asquared]

please report this untrue teaching to the pastor. while she is quite right our attitude toward worship should be joy rather than duty, nonetheless it is still an obligation for Catholics and a commandment of the Lord and of the Church. V2 did not abrogate the commandments. Those in the group who are not yet Catholic have no obligation, but if you have committed to the process you should be at Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days. The reason is that the teaching for RCIA has the liturgy as its starting point. Even on days you don’t meet, because naturally the volunteers want time with their families on holidays, you should be provided with something to help you reflect on the readings of these solemnities, so essential to our faith.

 

[Lurch104]

I’m wondering if the communications were just clouded. I lead RCIA in my parish. We are also having a Christmas break of sorts. I was careful to explain that while we hoped that they would attend mass on there own for the 2 Sundays we were “off”, we would not be meeting as a group for Breaking Open The Word during mass. This was to allow our catechumens to attends whichever mass suits their family situations and traditions (our normal meeting mass is 9am).

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

palmas85:

I’ve posted several times on the state of a friend of mines RCIA experience. Since my last post, things have generally been pretty good as far as I know, but in this time of the year, Christmas and New Years, things changed somewhat, and he once again asked me for advice. Here is the situation.

During Advent, his group continued to meet and attend Mass together, The week before Christmas, they did not meet, and were told that it was optional for them to attend Mass on Christmas, due to the crowds that would undoubtedly be there. There was no group meeting for the Christmas Masses. Last week in their weekly meeting he asked the group leader why attending Christmas Mass was optional since Christmas is a Holy Day of Obligation and would they be meeting as a group for January 1. . He says, and I don’t know if he 's reporting this correctly, that she said, there really is nothing that should be considered a day of obligation and that a person should be joyful to attend the Eucharistic assembly and never go due to a sense of duty and obligation. She added that such rigid thinking was pre-Vatican II in nature and should be avoided.

They are not meeting as a group on January 1 either.

Questions: has something happened that I don’t know about? I thought we still had Holy Days of Obligation. Has that changed?

Holy days of obligation bind Catholics. Christians who are not Catholic are not bound to the laws of the Catholic Church technically. However a Catechumen or Candidate should want to attend Mass.