"Rite of Welcome" in place of Penitential Rite?

[japhy]

Has anyone heard of a “Rite of Welcome” (or something similarly named) that can replace the Penitential Rite in Mass? I am not speaking of an RCIA Rite, but something that can be done in a Mass (perhaps a Mass with a small homogenous group). I don’t recall seeing it in my copy of the Sacramentary, and I can’t find anything relevant through Google.

 

[puzzleannie]

yes, this and various other rites proper to RCIA replace the penitential rite. also if the petitions for the catechumens and candidates are said at this time, they replace the prayer of the faithful, and some of the rites can also replace the creed. I know of nothing called the Rite of Welcoming outside RCIA, but there are other rites such as sprinkling, rites belonging to baptism celebrated within Mass, for example, that replace the penitential rite.

 

[ac_claire]

Are you maybe thinking of the practice (not a rite, obviously-more like an abuse) in some churches where the pastor will make everyone shake hands with their neighbor…? I’ve only been to one mass where that happened, but I’ve heard it goes on elsewhere. It was at about the same time and place in the liturgy as the penitential rite.

 

[SMHW]

Has anyone heard of a “Rite of Welcome” (or something similarly named) that can replace the Penitential Rite in Mass? I am not speaking of an RCIA Rite, but something that can be done in a Mass (perhaps a Mass with a small homogenous group). I don’t recall seeing it in my copy of the Sacramentary, and I can’t find anything relevant through Google.

The Rite of Welcoming is an RICA rite specific to Candidates (those already baptized.) It’s sort of like the Rite of Acceptance for catechumens.

Our parish had the Rite of Welcoming the first Sunday of Lent. It’s the one where they do all the signing of the senses.

I don’t think that most of the RCIA rites are in the Sacramentary. I can’t vouch for the accuracy but I googled “RICA Rite of Welcome” and found a Wikipedia article which gives outlines of the various RICA rites, including the Rite of Welcome.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Christian_Initiation_for_Adults

 

[japhy]

yes, this and various other rites proper to RCIA replace the penitential rite. also if the petitions for the catechumens and candidates are said at this time, they replace the prayer of the faithful, and some of the rites can also replace the creed. I know of nothing called the Rite of Welcoming outside RCIA, but there are other rites such as sprinkling, rites belonging to baptism celebrated within Mass, for example, that replace the penitential rite.

This was a Mass with a small congregation of less than a dozen; nothing special, just a Mass for a private group. So you know of no such general purpose “Rite of Welcome”…

 

[japhy]

The Rite of Welcoming is an RICA rite specific to Candidates (those already baptized.) It’s sort of like the Rite of Acceptance for catechumens.

I’m not interested in RCIA-specific rites, as I stated in my original post.

 

[ac_claire]

I’m not interested in RCIA-specific rites, as I stated in my original post.

This probably isn’t it, but could you be talking about the practice (an abuse, not a rite) where the priest makes everyone turn and greet their neighbors? After mass has already started? I’ve heard of that. Because that would be at around the same time/place in the liturgy as the penitential rite. Otherwise, I don’t know. Where’s benedictgal?

 

[japhy]

This probably isn’t it, but could you be talking about the practice (an abuse, not a rite) where the priest makes everyone turn and greet their neighbors? After mass has already started? I’ve heard of that. Because that would be at around the same time/place in the liturgy as the penitential rite. Otherwise, I don’t know. Where’s benedictgal?

Heh, she’ll come soon enough I’m sure. As for the “rite”, it is abuse-related, because I received a response letter to the letter I sent back in November after a particularly unsettling Mass “experience” I had. The priest in question wrote that there is a “Rite of Welcome” which can take the place of the “Penitential Rite”; I brought this up with him because we went straight to the Kyrie with nothing prior, and it was a Kyrie without invocations.

 

[puzzleannie]

This was a Mass with a small congregation of less than a dozen; nothing special, just a Mass for a private group. So you know of no such general purpose “Rite of Welcome”…

no and neither am I an expert on liturgy in general, but I have a working knowledge of RCIA because that is my job, liturgy in general is not. Did the priest actually say it was a “Rite” or was it something informal? A Rite is a written instruction on what the priest and people are to say and do, with the words of the prayers and blessings, and has a liturgical purpose and organically “fits” in the liturgical life of the Church. Ad hoc practices added to Mass (like hand-shaking) or sacraments (like a unity candle) may be customs or innovations, but they are not rites.

 

[japhy]

Did the priest actually say it was a “Rite” or was it something informal? A Rite is a written instruction on what the priest and people are to say and do, with the words of the prayers and blessings, and has a liturgical purpose and organically “fits” in the liturgical life of the Church.

He wrote to me: “You will also find that there is such a thing as the Rite of Welcome which can replace the Penitential Rite.”

 

[Phemie]

He wrote to me: “You will also find that there is such a thing as the Rite of Welcome which can replace the Penitential Rite.”

If there is nothing else happening (baptism, wedding, etc) the Sacramentary offers only 3 options after the Introductory Rites:

I – Sprinkling Rite
II – If the Mass was preceded by some part of the LOH, the penitential rite is omitted and you go directly to the Gloria or the Opening Prayer
III – Penitential Rite I, II or III

 

[John_Lilburne]

Not sure, but these may be helpful:

From Directory of Masses with Children:
“40. … It is sometimes permissible to omit one or other element of the introductory rite or perhaps expand another element. There should always be at least some introductory element, which is completed by the opening prayer.”

1969 Instruction Actio pastoralis “Masses with special groups”:
“6. … b. Before the celebration some time may be devoted to medititation on Scripture or to an instruction on a spiritual topic.”

From the 2002 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) approved for the USA, which can be accessed from romanrite.com/girm.html :

“32. Special celebrations of Mass should observe the guidelines established for them: For Masses with special groups, cf. Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Instruction Actio pastoralis, on Masses with special groups, 15 May 1969: AAS 61 (1969), pp. 806-811; for Masses with children, cf. Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Directory for Masses with Children, 1 November 1973: AAS 66 (1974), pp. 30-46; …”.

 

[Phemie]

Unless the congregation was comprised mostly of children and only a few adults the DMC doesn’t apply.

As for other Masses I guess we’d have to see if there is a particular rite for that specific Mass.

 

[ac_claire]

I googled it (home sick today, so I have some free time… ) and all that came up was the RCIA thing and the Rite of Welcome for simple adoption ceremonies, which can be celebrated by a priest or layperson, and has nothing to do with a mass…

 

[John_Lilburne]

He wrote to me: “You will also find that there is such a thing as the Rite of Welcome which can replace the Penitential Rite.”

I have not heard of this “Rite of Welcome”. But there is a ceremony when a bishop is transferred to another diocese or does not receive ordination in his own cathedral. It is called “Reception of the Bishop in his Cathedral Church”.
From the Ceremonial of Bishops “1143 … The penitential rie of the Mass is omitted, and also, as circumstances suggest, the Kyrie, …”.
Such a ceremony is described in this article of 20 February 2008 by Cindy Wooden at catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0800988.htm .
If the priest had written “there is such thing as a Rite of Reception which can replace the Penitential Rite” I suppose it would have been correct, but completely irrelevant.

 

[japhy]

I have not heard of this “Rite of Welcome”. But there is a ceremony when a bishop is transferred to another diocese or does not receive ordination in his own cathedral. It is called “Reception of the Bishop in his Cathedral Church”. … If the priest had written “there is such thing as a Rite of Reception which can replace the Penitential Rite” I suppose it would have been correct, but completely irrelevant.

There is also the commingling of the Liturgy of Hours with Mass (cf. GILH, n. 94), but that’s not relevant either.

The priest is defending his decision to omit the Penitential Rite (replacing it with something or nothing) and then doing the Kyrie by itself (without invocations). I can’t find anything to back up his decision.

 

[jmcrae]

He wrote to me: “You will also find that there is such a thing as the Rite of Welcome which can replace the Penitential Rite.”

What was this in response to? Had he actually done what he thought to be a Rite of Welcome at a Mass? Or was he just throwing this out there as an example?

If he was just using it as an example, you can say, “Yes, when there are baptized RCIA candidates being intiated into the Period of Catechesis, the Rite of Welcome can replace the Penitential Rite, but that is a very specific and exceptional situation. One does not add in a Rite of Welcome to the Mass willy-nilly.”

 

[japhy]

What was this in response to? Had he actually done what he thought to be a Rite of Welcome at a Mass? Or was he just throwing this out there as an example?

If he was just using it as an example, you can say, “Yes, when there are baptized RCIA candidates being intiated into the Period of Catechesis, the Rite of Welcome can replace the Penitential Rite, but that is a very specific and exceptional situation. One does not add in a Rite of Welcome to the Mass willy-nilly.”

He wrote it to me in a letter, responding to my letter in which I asked about several changes he made to the liturgy when he celebrated Mass for a small group I belong to. It was his rationale, I assume, for omitting the Penitential Rite.

I’d better not use the phrase “willy-nilly”. I used the words “care-free” and “disobedience” in my letter, and he was offended.

 

[benedictgal]

He wrote it to me in a letter, responding to my letter in which I asked about several changes he made to the liturgy when he celebrated Mass for a small group I belong to. It was his rationale, I assume, for omitting the Penitential Rite.

I’d better not use the phrase “willy-nilly”. I used the words “care-free” and “disobedience” in my letter, and he was offended.

Having read through all of the posts in the thread, I must concur with your initial gut feeling, japhy. This is another case of the priest inserting his own personal idiosyncracy into the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Here is what Redemptionis Sacramentum has to say:

[30.] The office “that belongs to Priests in particular in the celebration of the Eucharist” is a great one, "for it is their responsibility to preside at the Eucharist in persona Christi and to provide a witness to and a service of communion not only for the community directly taking part in the celebration, but also for the universal Church, which is always brought into play within the context of the Eucharist. It must be lamented that, especially in the years following the post-Conciliar liturgical reform, as a result of a misguided sense of creativity and adaptation, there have been a number of abuses which have been a source of suffering for many".70

[31.] In keeping with the solemn promises that they have made in the rite of Sacred Ordination and renewed each year in the Mass of the Chrism, let Priests celebrate “devoutly and faithfully the mysteries of Christ for the praise of God and the sanctification of the Christian people, according to the tradition of the Church, especially in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation”.71 ***They ought not to detract from the profound meaning of their own ministry by corrupting the liturgical celebration either through alteration or omission, or through arbitrary additions.72 ***For as Saint Ambrose said, “It is not in herself … but in us that the Church is injured. Let us take care so that our own failure may not cause injury to the Church”.73 Let the Church of God not be injured, then, by Priests who have so solemnly dedicated themselves to the ministry. Indeed, under the Bishop’s authority let them faithfully seek to prevent others as well from committing this type of distortion.

The insertion of this made-up Rite of Welcome, which is not present in neither the second version of the GIRM nor the current one, would be covered under the above-quoted section from RS.

Japhy, what you described, although I it’s certainly a different form, is what my dad’s pastor did. Except, he didn’t do a so-called “Rite of Welcome”. The priest substituted the penitential rite with Amazing Grace (at a funeral Mass) and the Attende Domine (during Lent). Now, I love, absolutely, love, the Attende Domine. But, we cannot use it in lieu of what the Church requires.

Sorry it took me so long to see the thread. I don’t consider myself a genuine and bona fide expert (don’t hold a degree in this subject), but, having read through the documents and experienced things (good and bad), I can certainly draw from all of these things.

 

[jmcrae]

The insertion of this made-up Rite of Welcome, which is not present in neither the second version of the GIRM nor the current one, would be covered under the above-quoted section from RS.

The Rite of Welcome is not “made up” - it is, however, very specific to one situation, and one situation only - the initiation of baptized Candidates into the Period of Catechesis as part of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. It is not appropriate at any other time.