RCIA in the Melkite Church?

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NorthTexan88

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Howdy all. My mom has finally decided to go to RCIA after 2 years of me and her talking about the Church. But here’s the situation…

I spoke to the RCIA director at the parish in the town where she lives, I won’t go into to detail, but there is no way I am sending her there. However, there is a Melkite Parish not to far from where she lives that I frequent. I spoke to the priest there about sending my mom through the RCIA program there. He said that the Melkite Church didn’t do RCIA, but he didn’t explain how she would join.

Can someone give me a little background so I can explain it to my mom? She doesn’t like surprises so I want to explain before I go up there with her.
 
NorthTexan88 said:
Howdy all. My mom has finally decided to go to RCIA after 2 years of me and her talking about the Church. But here’s the situation…

I spoke to the RCIA director at the parish in the town where she lives, I won’t go into to detail, but there is no way I am sending her there. However, there is a Melkite Parish not to far from where she lives that I frequent. I spoke to the priest there about sending my mom through the RCIA program there. He said that the Melkite Church didn’t do RCIA, but he didn’t explain how she would join.

Can someone give me a little background so I can explain it to my mom? She doesn’t like surprises so I want to explain before I go up there with her.
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Not every parish has a RCIA program. Ours often has guests from surrounding parishes that don’t have the necessary volunteers. Is there another parish in a nearby town?
 
NorthTexan88 said:
Howdy all. My mom has finally decided to go to RCIA after 2 years of me and her talking about the Church. But here’s the situation…

I spoke to the RCIA director at the parish in the town where she lives, I won’t go into to detail, but there is no way I am sending her there. However, there is a Melkite Parish not to far from where she lives that I frequent. I spoke to the priest there about sending my mom through the RCIA program there. He said that the Melkite Church didn’t do RCIA, but he didn’t explain how she would join.

Can someone give me a little background so I can explain it to my mom? She doesn’t like surprises so I want to explain before I go up there with her.
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In general, the Eastern & Oriental Churches don’t have “RCIA” as such. It’s usually done the “old way” meaning that, for adults, it normally involves individual instruction.

What’s involved can differ from place to place and case to case, so my suggestion would be to contact the Melkite pastor and simply ask him to explain the details.
 
malphono said:
In general, the Eastern & Oriental Churches don’t have “RCIA” as such. It’s usually done the “old way” meaning that, for adults, it normally involves individual instruction.

What’s involved can differ from place to place and case to case, so my suggestion would be to contact the Melkite pastor and simply ask him to explain the details.
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Just to clarify…RCIA is not a particular course or class…it is the Latin Church’s “Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults” and is a series of rites leading up to baptism including the Rite of Election. Many small Latin parishes won’t have a formal “course” that goes along with these rites and, like most Eastern/Oriental parishes, will provide instruction ‘one on one’. When I was received into the Latin Church, I received one on one instruction with the local pastor. A girl I sponsored, who was baptized and confirmed a couple years ago, received one on one basic catechesis from me (her situation was quite unique and a course just wasn’t going to work) with a few supplemental sessions from a priest. She still went through “RCIA”, as in the actual rites required by the Latin Church, but they were all performed Holy Saturday afternoon during the hours leading up to the Vigil Mass.

Regarding the OP, if the woman in question is a baptized Protestant, I believe she will be canonically enrolled in the Latin Church as a matter of course, but exceptions can be made - and she could certainly still receive instruction and even the sacraments through the Melkite Church.
 
Peter J,

Are you canonically a member of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church?

God bless,

Rony
 
Peter_J said:
👍

I can tell, of course, that your questions were sparked by the latest installment of my profile. (I decided to omit sui iuris church-info.) 🙂
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At one point I believe you were simply “Traditional” - for years as I recall. Does “syro- hearted” mean you are no longer “Byzantine hearted”? 😛
 
twf said:
At one point I believe you were simply “Traditional” - for years as I recall. Does “syro- hearted” mean you are no longer “Byzantine hearted”? 😛
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Thanks twf. I’m never 100% sure how to best handle the profile. Essentially I (like many, I suppose) generally keep the description short, but also tweak it once in a while to give readers a fuller idea – for example, sometimes just putting “Catholic” with no qualifier … or sometimes not even putting “Catholic” but rather “in communion with Rome” etc.

(I do recall putting “traditional”. I don’t recall how long that was, but I think it was a matter of months. But I wasn’t exactly “traditionalist” as the term is *commonly *understood.)

I think I *would *call myself “Byzantine-hearted” as well as “Syro-hearted”, but perhaps not quite as much as some. (Likewise, I’m sure that there are some who are more “Syro-hearted” than I am.)

🙂
 
P.S. I’m not sure what brought this thread to mind this morning … but regardless, I was thinking about something that I ought to add: I don’t necessarily think that there will be any major return to our Syriac roots (not counting small things, like possibly bringing back “We believe” in the creed) … but I think it’s very important for Melkites to cherish those few Syriac elements that we still have.
 
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