Teaching Liturgy to RCIA

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I have been asked to talk to the people in RCIA about the liturgy. I am planning on discussing:
  1. What is Liturgy?
  2. Why is it important?
  3. The Mass (in general - sacrifice, re-presentation, etc.)
  4. Specifics of the Mass - why we do the things we do, what they mean, etc.
Does this sound like a good outline? What do you think I ought to focus on?

I’d also be interested in hearing from people that went through RCIA to hear what they might have wanted to know about the Liturgy when they were preparing for conversion. Thanks!
 
Many RCIA candidates/catechumens come from traditions which reject liturgical worship. They may have been told, as I was, that liturgy stifles the actions of the Holy Spirit. I eventually found that liturgy does not impede the Holy Spirit, but provides a foundation for Him to work through the readings, the homily, and especially in the Holy Sacrifice. I would examine the historical connections with Jewish worship that the Catholic liturgy evolved from, and that God intended this style of worship. Also, note that every action in the liturgy has a profound meaning – we don’t do things for no reason.

You can never talk too often about the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
 
I am a convert from Methodism that went through the RCIA process. I think the outline you have sounds good. The one thing I would suggest is in addition to your 4th part of the outline is to grab one of your church’s pew missals and show the RCIA group the order of the mass. When I went through the process we received a handout with the responses made by the people, when and what to say and what are the appropriate gestures etc.

We’ve found in our RCIA group that this helps the new converts a lot and goes a long way in helping them to participate and even to understand even more what is going on at Mass. It’s always been one of our most popular lessons.

I hope this helps

ChadS
 
I would definitely go through the order of the mass using the missalette. Explain to them Passover and the connection to the Last Supper and how the New Covenant came to be revealed. You may want to think about explaining Passover 1 night and then get into the order of the mass a different night. Scott Hahn has great books about these teachings.
 
I have taught Liturgy, and one thing that really seems to resonate is to, somewhere early in the talk, review the liturgy of the early Christians. Some key points are to demonstrate how similar some of the prayers are, consistency in Eucharist, consistency in the reasons for worship, role of the priest “in persona Christi”, etc. But most importantly, seeing that this Mass started at the time of the earliest Christians gives it great credibility and sets the stage for the rest of your talk.

Depending on how much time you have you could spend 3 minutes or 30 on this topic…there are quite a few good books, for example “Mass of the Early Christians” by Mike Aquilina. I have others if you have trouble finding some good sources.
 
One thing that should be the focus that ties all those topics together should be Jesus. Use that as the underlying and centering point of the whole, this will speak to everyone of any different background and is the only proper way to tie it all together.

What is Liturgy mean in our relationship to Christ?
How is it important in our relationship to Christ?
How is the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus and our Worship of Christ expressed in the Mass?
Why do we kneel for Jesus? Why do we stand for the words of Jesus, why do we show our respect and how do we highlight certain portions of the Mass?

In Christ
Scylla
 
Here are some other books I have that may help:

The two best, classics, are “The Mass of the Roman Rite, Its Origins and Development” by Joseph Jungmann, SJ (a two volume set).

Second is “The Mass, A Study of the Roman Liturgy” by Adriuan Fortescue.

I also have a book “Doors to the Sacred, A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church”, by Joseph Martos, that has about 35-40 pages on the early Mass.
 
Msgr. Romano Guardini wrote some very good books on the liturgy, as has Pope Benedict XVI. I wrote a piece on the Mass (which explains everything) and I used it when I delivered an “ultreya”, or, speech, to the youth Cursillo, to explain the Holy Sacrifice. One of the kids had done a presentation on the Mass, but, it was filled with many errors that I believed an accurate explanation was necessary.

If you PM me, I can give you my notes.
 
I am teaching a 5 week course on the Mass with power point (I just love Power Point). It includes the different rites within the Mass, their history and a spiriutal component associated with each part. It is actually an advanced catechist course but I have used parts of it in RCIA. When we do the Mass in RCIA we go over the missalette and tell why we do what we do in each part. I don’t go too much into the history because in one session you can’t really cover the parts of the Mass and its history.
 
Laudatur Iesus Christus.

It may be useful to alert the catechumens to the idea that the Liturgy of the Church is more than the Holy Mass. The Liturgy includes all seven of the Sacraments as well as the Liturgy of the Hours and other devotions under the form of blessings, prayers, and pious acts and practices specifically approved by the Church.

This is clear in the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in Sancrosanctum Concilium (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy). The titles of the Chapters of that document make the extent of the Liturgy clear:

Chapter I: General Principles for the Restoration and Promotion of the Sacred Liturgy
Chapter II: The Most Sacred Mystery of the Eucharist
Chapter III: The Other Sacraments and the Sacramentals
Chapter IV: The Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours)]
Chapter V: The Liturgical Year
Chapter VI: Sacred Music
Chapter VII: Sacred Art and Sacred Furniture

(See also, Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, No. 7.)

Further the Catechism of the Catholic Church suggests an even broader content for the Liturgy of the Church:

In the New Testament the word “liturgy” refers not only to the celebration of divine worship but also to the proclamation of the Gospel and to active charity.(6) In all of these situations it is a question of the service of God and neighbor.
In a liturgical celebration the Church is servant in the image of her Lord, the one “leitourgos”;(7) she shares in Christ’s priesthood (worship), which is both prophetic (proclamation) and kingly (service of charity):
The liturgy then is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ.
It involves the presentation of man’s sanctification under the guise of signs perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each of these signs.
In it full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members.
From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others.
No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.(8) (1997 Catechism of the Catholic Church 1070)
Finally, a note that might be good to give to an RCIA class, which is likely to include people who have already been baptized but who will be making their first communion at their time of full admission into the Church, concerns Indulgenced Grant No. 42, which provides:

**First Communion: ** A *plenary indulgence *is granted the Christian faithful when they receive their first communion and also when they devoutly assist at a first communion ceremony. (Apostolic Penitentiary, The Handbook of Indulgences, (Authorized English Edition, 1991).)

The class should be advised of the conditions required for obtaining a plenary indulgence, including the general qualifications and the specific prayers for the intentions of the Pope. This is important because the indulgence will not be obtained, unless the intention to receive it is at least generally held and the other conditions and actions are present. Even those who are being baptized and therefore have no “need” for this indulgence for themselves may wish to make a gift of it to someone in Purgatory.

Pax Christi vobiscum.

John Hiner
 
John makes excellent points, one being that liturgy does not just mean the Mass. It seems to be a “modern invention” to call the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the liturgy. Please let the class know about the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the priest “in persona Christi” offering Himself (His sacrifice), to the Father. (So much of the meaning of the Mass has been lost in the last 40 or so years.)

The connection with the Jewish worship, holy of holies, etc., that was mentioned, is so meaningful also.
 
sphilomena said:
John makes excellent points, one being that liturgy does not just mean the Mass. It seems to be a “modern invention” to call the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the liturgy. Please let the class know about the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the priest “in persona Christi” offering Himself (His sacrifice), to the Father. (So much of the meaning of the Mass has been lost in the last 40 or so years.)

The connection with the Jewish worship, holy of holies, etc., that was mentioned, is so meaningful also.
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Yes, I do concur with John. However, the term “liturgy” means the “work of the people” when it comes to worship. I believe it is a Greek word.

Furthermore, the Holy Father does make use of the word “liturgy” when describing the Mass. His great work, “The Spirit of the Liturgy” centers precisely on the Mass. If anything Pope Benedict is trying to steer the barque of Peter into a better and fuller understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

When I taught RCIA, I included lessons on the Mass simply because this is the most important act that we, as Catholics, partake. My PV, who served as our cathedral’s first rector, also incorporates explanations of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in his homilies. Not only has it benefitted those in RCIA, but, it has helped to “reintroduce”, so to speak, the Mass to the rest of the faithful.

He preached a beautiful homily Christmas Day, wherein he tied the fact that Christ was born in Bethlehem, which means “house of Bread” and then becomes our Bread from heaven in the Mass. He who was laid in a manger (from which animals eat - also, in Italian, the word “mangiare” -which sounds like manger- means “to eat”) becomes our very Food by virtue of His Sacrifice. By the way, this particular concept doesn’t diminish the Sacrifice at all, as this idea appears in some of Pope Benedict’s early books.

Having said all of that, I would suggest to the OP that perhaps he get his pastor involved and, perhaps, take my PV as an example.
 
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