RCIA Help

[Mother_Hen]

This is my first year helping to teach RCIA. The current instructor says she just “made up” her lesson plans. Does the Church have an ‘official’ RCIA guide for leaders? Where can I go so I know what is supposed to be covered?

 

[jmcrae]

This is my first year helping to teach RCIA. The current instructor says she just “made up” her lesson plans. Does the Church have an ‘official’ RCIA guide for leaders? Where can I go so I know what is supposed to be covered?

When I was doing it, I found the “Journey of Faith” pamphlet series published by Ligouri to be particularly useful. You should be able to find these at your local Catholic book store, but if not, you can order them on-line. If you’re on the September to Easter calendar, just do them in order, but if you’re doing the year-round version, there is a guide-book that goes with them that you can use to fit them in with the Gospel lesson for each week. (The Gospel reading for each week comes from the Sunday Missal.)

Also, if you don’t have a copy of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, get one, and read it - most of the information is for the priest, but it’s also good for you to know what’s supposed to be happening, and when, rather than just hoping that the priest will remember everything - they are human too, and sometimes they need reminding of things, or they might assume that you want to skip certain elements of the Rite.

 

[1ke]

The Rites of RCIA are governed by the official rites of the Church, and can be found in the “rite book” along with some basics on the process.

Regarding the catechesis, this should be governed by diocesan catechetical guidelines, which in turn will follow what the Church has outlined in documents such as On Catechesis In Our Time and most especially the General Directory for Catechesis.

All catechesis should be based on the four pillars of the Catechism, but for RCIA you also want them to be in an order that makes sense for your program, and you also need to incorporate opportunities for community.

The US Adult Catechism produced by the USCCB is formatted for use in RCIA.

Your diocese should have RCIA catechetical guidelines. My diocese has a curriculum.

If your RCIA leader doesn’t have some sort of catechetical training he/she should not be “making up” the curriculum.

ACM has a great turn-key program that includes a Leader’s Guide, a Catechist Guide, Participant Guide, Sponsor handbook, and more.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

This is my first year helping to teach RCIA. The current instructor says she just “made up” her lesson plans. Does the Church have an ‘official’ RCIA guide for leaders? Where can I go so I know what is supposed to be covered?

When I coordinated RCIA I made up my own list of topics covering 48 sessions. Basically one full liturgical year for those not Baptized (Catechumens) and about half that for those already Baptized (Candidates) . You can find it on here somewhere under an RCIA thread. If not Email me and I send it.

 

[Irish_Catholic_1]

This is my first year helping to teach RCIA. The current instructor says she just “made up” her lesson plans. Does the Church have an ‘official’ RCIA guide for leaders? Where can I go so I know what is supposed to be covered?

PLEASE get good, solid materials!!

Contact the folks here at Catholic Answers for advice.

Also, Scott Hahn’s St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology has a lot of great resources. I suggest you contact them. ANTYTHING by Hahn is guarenteed to be great!!

salvationhistory.com/

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[DavidFilmer]

This is my first year helping to teach RCIA. The current instructor says she just “made up” her lesson plans.

I was asked to be the director of RCIA for my Parish (I had no formal training, but I had a good understanding of the Catholic Faith and a good ability to teach). I accepted the position with the expectation that I would be able to choose from any number of high-quality pre-prepared curriculums, and all I would need to do is to present the material – hey, that’s easy.

I discovered that none were up to my standards (and most were complete and utter c***).

With my pastor’s approval, I finally developed my own curriculum, based heavily on Peter Kreeft’s “Catholic Christianity” (which is itself a catechism based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church). My Parish had a one-year RCIA cycle, giving me about 30 weeks of instruction (Autumn to Easter). And Kreeft’s book has about 30 chapters (some juggling was necessary).

I did not disclose the source of my material to the participants until the final day of class, when I presented each of them with a copy of the book as a gift.

I had a reason for not being initially forthright about the source of the material. If the participants knew of it, they might think they could go out and buy the book and read it and find out what they need to know, and thus they would not need to come to the RCIA sessions. But I wanted them to come, and be part of the group, and hear the material presented to them (not present it to themselves), which is a much more Catholic approach (where things are normally done in community, not in isolation).