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ctop
Guest
I was a Protestant minister for 20 years and a pastor for nine of those years before becoming Catholic, and the statistics are no different there. People are looking for the church that will conform to their lifestyle, instead of conforming their lifestyle to the truth. The turnover rate is astonishing among Protestant churches. Some churches ebb and flow like the stock market. This is not a Catholic problem but a people problem.
ctop
ctop
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asd72
Guest
Where do you purchase the RCIA book? Is it available to the general public or just Parishes. I only go through the Sunday readings in the lectionary with my Priest. I’ve not had any books. I wouldn’t mind getting one just to ensure I’ve covered the basics in my own reading/studying.
Oh just noticed the post above, might have a search for a UK one.
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jmcrae
Guest
It’s written for the priests and the catechists; not for the RCIA participants. It contains all of the regulations and the rituals that are to be done for each kind of participant (Catechumens, baptized Protestants, and returning Catholics who are missing one or more Sacraments of Initiation are the three categories addressed directly) - it also indicates which ones are optional and which ones are required - keeping in mind that the “option” is for the priest; if the priest decides you’re doing it, then you’re doing it, and if he decides not, then he doesn’t have to explain himself to you.
It hasn’t got any information in it that would be of direct interest to you as a candidate or catechumen - it isn’t a course of studies or anything like that.
How you get it is you become appointed by your priest to be an RCIA Catechist, and you attend the official training seminars for RCIA Catechists - they sell them to you at the training classes.
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jmcrae
Guest
I think what you’re really looking for is the Universal Catechism - that, you can get at any Catholic bookstore.
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puzzleannie
Guest
Breaking open the Word is an essential element of RCIA, but it is the beginning, not the end of catechumenal catechesis and formation. It also can be done at other times even after Mass without dismissal, which simply is not always possible.
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tafan
Guest
Yea, the GIRM is written for priests and liturgies, Catholics who just go to mass should never read it.
We are not an elitist church, i can see a lot of direct interest a person going through RCIA would have.
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fred_conty
Guest
RCIA is the beginning only. Being accepted into the church is the beginning only.
A Catholic must be educated on the faith and continually learn more about the faith
the rest of their lives. A Catholic either grows or dies, there is no between, and
this holds for all Catholics.
Catholics are experiencing not just a different world,
but a different Catholic world. Before Vatican II, Catholics lived in a Catholic circle
and were supported by each other and for the most part had an aversion for
protestant faith, just as the protestants had an aversion for the Catholic faith.
They didn’t mix. They worked and mingled together on a buisness and social
level, but not at all in the religious side. They each felt sorry for the other faith that
they were in spiritual jepordy and wanted them converted to go to heaven. So
Catholics had a unity and a certain belonging. And the priests and sisters were in
their religious garb for all to see. Parishes were a visual religious community. It
offered a fortress of resistence to quit the faith. Whatever that was we have lost
it. It is now up to the individual to keep up his/her own faith by whatever means
are available.
It is no different with protestants. Many of them are jumping ship, or become spiritual
grasshoppers, or take a vacation from it all. The only ones benefitting are the
fundamentalists who are vacuums taking members away from everyone.
RCIA will be as good as the parish reflects itself as a religious community to attract
and hold on to its new family members. And just for a beginning, the parish should be
praying for the new ones on a regular basis however they wish to do this. It shouldn’t
be just an afterthought, but a project of the whole parish participating in.
Just some grassy thoughts.
A Catholic must be educated on the faith and continually learn more about the faith
the rest of their lives. A Catholic either grows or dies, there is no between, and
this holds for all Catholics.
Catholics are experiencing not just a different world,
but a different Catholic world. Before Vatican II, Catholics lived in a Catholic circle
and were supported by each other and for the most part had an aversion for
protestant faith, just as the protestants had an aversion for the Catholic faith.
They didn’t mix. They worked and mingled together on a buisness and social
level, but not at all in the religious side. They each felt sorry for the other faith that
they were in spiritual jepordy and wanted them converted to go to heaven. So
Catholics had a unity and a certain belonging. And the priests and sisters were in
their religious garb for all to see. Parishes were a visual religious community. It
offered a fortress of resistence to quit the faith. Whatever that was we have lost
it. It is now up to the individual to keep up his/her own faith by whatever means
are available.
It is no different with protestants. Many of them are jumping ship, or become spiritual
grasshoppers, or take a vacation from it all. The only ones benefitting are the
fundamentalists who are vacuums taking members away from everyone.
RCIA will be as good as the parish reflects itself as a religious community to attract
and hold on to its new family members. And just for a beginning, the parish should be
praying for the new ones on a regular basis however they wish to do this. It shouldn’t
be just an afterthought, but a project of the whole parish participating in.
Just some grassy thoughts.
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jmcrae
Guest
Quite honestly, my experience is that if you let them read it, they get all freaked out, thinking they have to know all this stuff, and you never see them again.
The difference with the GIRM is that everyone who’s reading it is an Initiated Catholic - and the elements do, in fact, pertain to all of us. Also, we know what it is that they pertain to, since we’ve all experienced the Mass. The RCIA participants have never experienced the Rites before.
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MinkPink
Guest
This! I don’t like being dismissed. I go to daily masses pretty regularly because I don’t like missing out, even if I can’t partake yet.
Interesting. In the RCIA program (process, whatever you want to call it) I am in, everyone - baptized (which I am) and unbaptized - participates in dismissal.
I am very fortunate in that I love the RCIA program that I am in and don’t really have any complaints other than not really liking dismissal. Coming from atheism, I have found those running it to be very open and responsive to my questions and we have a very diverse group of people (from skeptics to religious Protestants), so we touch on a lot of really deep theological and philosophical topics.
I had no idea that those baptized must do confession during Lent. I am petrified.
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jmcrae
Guest
They will teach you what to do beforehand, It is really not very complicated - there are a couple of things you need to memorize, but even if you forget, the priest will help you. It’s one of the few things in life that is difficult to do badly. You’d have to fail on purpose - and even then, the priest would probably correct you and help you.
You will be just fine.
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rymichael
Guest
It has been a year for me in the Catholic Church and I will never go back to being a Protestant, it is an empty life. I have not once questioned my decision to become Catholic. The people that leave the Church have a weak prayer life and don’t fully understand what the Church teaches and what it believes in. I never had a prayer life as a Protestant, and I can say that I have never been happier. The Catholic Church is my home and I am here to stay forever.
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tafan
Guest
I find it interesting that you mentioned the difference in prayer life. I have heard other former protestants say the same thing. And I find it very ironic and interesting, considering that one of the complaints about Catholicism, made by both Catholics and Protestants, is that all of our prayres are just rote formulations. It seems that all of the Catholic devotions, eg rosary, adoration, Angelus, etc; may lend themselves to better prayer life and mediation than is available elsewhere. This should not be surprising, as the Church has had a long time to figure out what works and what doesn’t; but it is rather ironic.It has been a year for me in the Catholic Church and I will never go back to being a Protestant, it is an empty life. I have not once questioned my decision to become Catholic. The people that leave the Church have a weak prayer life and don’t fully understand what the Church teaches and what it believes in. I never had a prayer life as a Protestant, and I can say that I have never been happier. The Catholic Church is my home and I am here to stay forever.
I remember once, we were going, as a family to a town a couple of hours away to spend a weekend away from home. We left on Friday morning after mass; some very active Protestant family who lived in that town were excited for us to arrive, and when we told them we would be leaving right after mass, the response was “You go to Church on Friday morning?”.
I heard a former Protestant minister on EWTN say the same thing as you are saying; he was amazed that morning mass and rosary in his local parish was attended by 40 people every day. Now that is not a large number percentage wise, but as a Protestant minister he could not get a prayer group to meet regularly if it was not Sunday morning or Wednesday evening service. He described most protestat prayer lives as utilizeing rather short, made-up prayers on ethe spot and not done to any regimen or consistency.
Thanks for the post!!!
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BillyB
Guest
I look at it like the anticipation for opening Christmas gifts. It intensifies my desire for the Beloved.
Too Protestant?
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CallMeCatholic
Guest
RCIA is definitely what you make of it. Given that I was raised Catholic and had a desire to grow in faith, I have taken the class realizing that it is all very meaningful and important in relevance to my faith. Each lesson draws me closer to God & is teaching me the Catechism essentially.
However, there are a few folks in my class who seem to attend class week after week, appear to be bored out of their minds, and quite frankly don’t appear to understand a whole lot about the Church. I pray for those people, but until I’m proven otherwise, I do believe RCIA is only as affecting as you desire it to be.
However, there are a few folks in my class who seem to attend class week after week, appear to be bored out of their minds, and quite frankly don’t appear to understand a whole lot about the Church. I pray for those people, but until I’m proven otherwise, I do believe RCIA is only as affecting as you desire it to be.
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jmcrae
Guest
That is a very good point - like everything else in life, you get out of it what you are willing to put into it. If all you put in is the bare minimum, you won’t get very much out of it.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
I’ve taken turns leading the dismissals at our parish for nearly two years now. It’s up to the person leading the dismissal to keep things from going the direction of sharing personal interpretation. For this reason, and others, I prefer to use Lectio Divina. It doesn’t lend itself to asking “what do you think”, but rather, “how does it speak to what is going on in your life?” It also helps that our homilists are usually very good at tying all the readings together and bringing out some highlights. I also like that Lectio gives the group a good spiritual practice they can carry beyond RCIA.
The point of RCIA is to bring a person into the Catholic church, of course, but an important aspect is the building of community. There isn’t an RCIA meeting I’m involved in with our DRE where this aspect of RCIA isn’t touched on. The desire for individualism some people have expressed in this thread falls outside of one of the important aspects of RCIA. No one is a community of one.
That being said, in our parish a Protestant who has already been baptized and is well formed in the Christian faith doesn’t go through the entire RCIA process, unless they want to. One of our deacons will form a small group of the candidates who are waiting to be confirmed, and teach that group separate from the non-baptized catechumens. Every person is different, and some want to wait until Easter Vigil. Others, he’ll set a date once he sees that they are ready. Last year we had a few people who were confirmed during Advent. This year, we have two candidates who are waiting, by choice, to be confirmed at the Easter Vigil. One comes to RCIA every week, because they want to.
The point of RCIA is to bring a person into the Catholic church, of course, but an important aspect is the building of community. There isn’t an RCIA meeting I’m involved in with our DRE where this aspect of RCIA isn’t touched on. The desire for individualism some people have expressed in this thread falls outside of one of the important aspects of RCIA. No one is a community of one.
That being said, in our parish a Protestant who has already been baptized and is well formed in the Christian faith doesn’t go through the entire RCIA process, unless they want to. One of our deacons will form a small group of the candidates who are waiting to be confirmed, and teach that group separate from the non-baptized catechumens. Every person is different, and some want to wait until Easter Vigil. Others, he’ll set a date once he sees that they are ready. Last year we had a few people who were confirmed during Advent. This year, we have two candidates who are waiting, by choice, to be confirmed at the Easter Vigil. One comes to RCIA every week, because they want to.
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NYCATHOLICGIRL
Guest
Hi,
I was baptised a Catholic, had my first Holy Communion and that was where it all ended. I was not confirmed so when I reverted to the Church I had to go through RCIA ,6 years ago. The program was lacking. The thing to keep in mind that RCIA is not the end all, what is being done to grow your faith? Daily Mass? Adoration? Prayer Groups? Catholic Conferences? Spiritual reading? Praying? Devotions? Watching Catholic movies, EWTN? All of this has helped me grow my faith, it wasn’t RCIA that got me where I am today and where I will be tomorrow. We are responsible for growing our faith, RCIA need not be blamed.
PS this year I was blessed enough to be asked to help with our RCIA program. I am ensuring that my participation does not resemble what I went through! God is Good!
I was baptised a Catholic, had my first Holy Communion and that was where it all ended. I was not confirmed so when I reverted to the Church I had to go through RCIA ,6 years ago. The program was lacking. The thing to keep in mind that RCIA is not the end all, what is being done to grow your faith? Daily Mass? Adoration? Prayer Groups? Catholic Conferences? Spiritual reading? Praying? Devotions? Watching Catholic movies, EWTN? All of this has helped me grow my faith, it wasn’t RCIA that got me where I am today and where I will be tomorrow. We are responsible for growing our faith, RCIA need not be blamed.
PS this year I was blessed enough to be asked to help with our RCIA program. I am ensuring that my participation does not resemble what I went through! God is Good!
J
Jon_Berkley
Guest
What statistics? What survey? By who? When? Sample size? Questions? To just throw out those numbers, much less to believe them strikes me as, silly. I know that there are two ways to spell baloney; baloney and balogna. Take your pick.
RCIA could use alot of improvement. I went through it 30 years ago. I have fond memories of it but there was some goofiness.
Today we have much more teachable information available in easy to use form such as the Catechism and its Compendium. A more standardized format that could be adopted by the various Bishops and Archbishops.
Probably there should be more willingness to allow catechisms and candidates to be allowed to be received into the Church on an ongoing basis. The current practice is wonderful for catechumens being received at the Easter Vigil, however in the case of non-catholic Christians who have valid baptism could be received on an ongoing basis.
In many instances perhaps a one-on-one lay-mentor program could be used more effectively. For a lot of folks RCIA is a real shot in the dark to try to start and remain in for more than a few months.
RCIA could use alot of improvement. I went through it 30 years ago. I have fond memories of it but there was some goofiness.
Today we have much more teachable information available in easy to use form such as the Catechism and its Compendium. A more standardized format that could be adopted by the various Bishops and Archbishops.
Probably there should be more willingness to allow catechisms and candidates to be allowed to be received into the Church on an ongoing basis. The current practice is wonderful for catechumens being received at the Easter Vigil, however in the case of non-catholic Christians who have valid baptism could be received on an ongoing basis.
In many instances perhaps a one-on-one lay-mentor program could be used more effectively. For a lot of folks RCIA is a real shot in the dark to try to start and remain in for more than a few months.
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jmcrae
Guest
It has most likely improved a great deal over the past 30 years.
I have lots of enthusiastic volunteers working with me in our RCIA who are very familiar with both the Scriptures and the Catechism, as well as various encyclicals of the Popes, which they eagerly share with the RCIA participants.
The issue is not the quality of the teaching, but the willingness of the participants to engage and actually participate. I have actually been asked what the meaning of the phrase, “attend RCIA meetings” is, since for whatever reason, people come into the process and somehow they are under the impression that merely signing up and then waiting a year at home or going off and doing something else “counts” as their “year of Catechesis.”
This is certainly allowed for those who are previously baptized - Scott Hahn, for example, never undertook an RCIA process at all, but was received into the Church after just a few weeks of meetings with a priest.
Not every baptized candidate is Scott Hahn, though - or even close.
Where are you going to find all of these mentors? I have trouble finding Catechists who are willing to speak to the whole group more than once or twice a year, and everybody has their favourite subject - few people are willing to teach a whole program.
Which makes me wonder how they are going to be able to stick with the Church for all of eternity. If a few months out of their lives is too much, then how is the rest of their lives not “too much,” as well?
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