Trudging the road of RCIA

[jmcrae]

Yeah, and maybe she could also find some replacement Candidates and Catechumans and Sponsors to fill in as well to replace all those that have travel plans.

I may be crazy, but I was under the impression that “RCIA must meet every week” means 52 meetings out of 52 weeks in the year. RCIA isn’t a college class - it’s Church for non-Catholics who want to convert.

If all of your people are leaving, then I imagine you’re getting visitors to your parish from other parts of the world, too - and some of them might be RCIA candidates who would appreciate an RCIA meeting being available for them to attend, even though they’re away from home.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I may be crazy, but I was under the impression that “RCIA must meet every week” means 52 meetings out of 52 weeks in the year. RCIA isn’t a college class - it’s Church for non-Catholics who want to convert.

If all of your people are leaving, then I imagine you’re getting visitors to your parish from other parts of the world, too - and some of them might be RCIA candidates who would appreciate an RCIA meeting being available for them to attend, even though they’re away from home.

No, of course not. We have however had to have people cancel Spring Break (family tradition) travel plans to the Caribbean for various Rites, and they did.

 

[Andruschak]

. People won’t stand for the pre Vatican II view you apparently have of the church.

.

???

Um, at the top of some of the pages in this forum is a banner on “How To Become A Catholic”. It contains what the US Council of Bishops state should be the program for people like me. I have stated that the parishes that actually do what the Bishops want are few and far between.

How does this make me a pre-Vatican II viewer? For that matter, what IS a pre-vatican II viewer? Curious minds want to know.

 

[Andruschak]

while dark night takes a deep breath, and maybe his meds if indicated, we will pause to reflect that the liturgies of Christmas and the octave are themselves a rich source of catechesis, and as observed, the break gives catechumens a chance to participate in the entire Mass for a change. I am sure that most of you were provided, as our members were, with some sort of guide or reflection to use at home on the readings of the season, in lieu of the usual breaking open of the Word. If not, catholicexchange.com provides not only links to the daily readings but also very good commentaries and teachings on the readings of the seasonal feasts.

Nope, no study materials were given to us candidates and catechumans for home study on the three days off. But please don’t worry. I am getting plenty of that from my daily prayers of Morning Office, Evening Office, and Night Office from the LOTH.

For those of you who are wondering how a mere Candidate can do this, my secret is the book THE DIVINE OFFICE FOR DODOS by Madeline Pecora Nugent.

DODOS = Devout, Obedient Disciples of Our savior

 

[Andruschak]

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Perhaps then we should raise our pill cups together in a toast for those that live in glass houses…Certainly your previous post about your so called ‘pathetic’ RCIA program ‘tounge in cheek’ or not is indicative of the fact that your meds may need adjustment

Hmmmm…I’ve been in RCIA classes for 3 months now. I have yet to learn anything I didn’t know already. Precisely how will adjusting my daily intake of Antabuse and Synthroid remedy this?. Curious minds want to know

 

[Andruschak]

I would like to thank all of you who have, over and over again, stressed my need for obedience. I assume this stress on obediance does NOT apply to Parishes who ignore the guidelines of the US Council of Bishops concerning the reception of Candidates into the Church.

Thanks to all, as well, for the reminders on patience. It really would do me some good to learn this lesson. My cats have it down pat.

I would like to thank all for your suggestions as what I should do while the RCIA classes are shut down for 3 weeks. Rest assured I read the daily scripture readings vis catechismclass.com which also includes daily readings from the actual catechism, commentary and articles, and suggestions for prayers. Which is how I got into LOTH.

(If you don’t have that much extra time, at least give Compline a try. I seem to sleep much better since I made Compline my nightly ritual.)

And let us not forget all those others whose birthday is 25 december. Sir Isaac Newton, for an inspiring example.

 

[FredM]

What is the distinction between Candidates and Catecumans anyway, given that baptisms in non catholics denominations are valid?

I hope Rome and others take notice of how people really feel about RCIA. Maybe they need to be on an area basis in a larger class for those parishes that don’t have clergy that can do it.

Sometimes modifications can be made for sufficienet reason or concern.

Fred

 

[DarkNight_FL]

Hmmmm…I’ve been in RCIA classes for 3 months now. I have yet to learn anything I didn’t know already. Precisely how will adjusting my daily intake of Antabuse and Synthroid remedy this?. Curious minds want to know

Only if the shoe fits for you… The comment was directed at someone else. But if you have to ask

 

[puzzleannie]

Perhaps then we should raise our pill cups together in a toast for those that live in glass houses…Certainly your previous post about your so called ‘pathetic’ RCIA program ‘tounge in cheek’ or not is indicative of the fact that your meds may need adjustment

the trouble with adjusting one is you then have to adjust them all, I feel I succeed if I just remember to take each one at the right time each day, but if I forget, DD or my secretary will remind me, ever so gently.

 

[puzzleannie]

I Thanks to all, as well, for the reminders on patience. It really would do me some good to learn this lesson. My cats have it down pat.

I .

what I really want to know is how you taught your cats the virtue of obedience, I certainly never suceeded with any of our cats.

 

[DarkNight_FL]

???

Um, at the top of some of the pages in this forum is a banner on “How To Become A Catholic”. It contains what the US Council of Bishops state should be the program for people like me. I have stated that the parishes that actually do what the Bishops want are few and far between.

How does this make me a pre-Vatican II viewer? For that matter, what IS a pre-vatican II viewer? Curious minds want to know.

You keep reminding us (this thread and others) about the delta between what you believe is a perfect; or even a good/acceptable RCIA program and the current model that has been deployed. You repeatedly talk about how many, how much, time off and other indications that ‘appear’ as though (through no fault of your own) that you may still be experiencing a model of spirituality the church has worked to change. Below are some short excerpts from Thomas Keatings ‘Intimacy With God’; Again this is not the full text of the chapter so I encourage you to follow the link and read the rest. The entire book is excellent by the way.

**Intimacy with God,
**by Fr. Thomas Keating
**Attitudes Toward God
**Chapter 2
The Christian Spiritual path is based on a deepening trust in God. Because trust is so important, our spiritual journey may be blocked if we carry negative attitudes toward God from early childhood. If we are afraid of God or see God as an angry father-figure, a suspicious policeman, or a harsh judge, it will be hard to develop enthusiasm, or even an interest, in the journey. These negative images of God, which are implanted in us largely as a result of early religious training, are in fact a legacy of past generations and a pervasive set of religious attitudes that represent a distortion–sometimes a 180-degree distortion–of scriptural and gospel values. This is true for both Protestants and Catholics, although its imprint has been felt particularly vividly in the Catholic Church.
Prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-66), a syndrome of attitudes about God that has been labeled the “Western Model of Spirituality” was generally communicated in catechism classes and religious instruction. The term is used by Fr. Richard Hauser, S. J., a professor at Creighton University, in his book In His Spirit. “Spirituality” should be put in quotation marks because the understanding of God that was communicated did not faithfully represent the teaching of Scripture; rather, it showed the heavy influence of the eighteenth-century Age of Reason, with its thought processes dominated by the philosophical dualism of René Descartes and its worldview shaped by Newtonian physics, with the grand image of God “out there,” managing a mechanical universe from a majestic distance. The bottom line, according to Fr. Hauser, was a rigidly dualistic sense of “self-outside-of-God,” and “God-outside-of-self.” This dualism might be characterized by the conviction that down here on earth, completely separated from God, we search, suffer, and struggle, while from some distant heaven God watches and judges.

1. 
   *]The first attitude that flows from the Western Model of Spirituality is that external acts are more important than internal acts.
   *]The second attitude that flows from the Western Model of Spirituality is that the self initiates all good works and God rewards them. When articulated theologically, this belief comes close to the Pelagian heresy. It brings to mind the image of battling in an arena to placate God for one’s sins or to win God’s favor, while God sits passively in the bleachers watching the contest. If we do well, it is thumbs up; if we fail, it is thumbs down. The gospel, on the contrary, teaches that God initiates all good deeds through the inspiration of the Spirit abiding within us, while we listen attentively and put into action what the Spirit suggests.
   *]The third attitude that flows from the Western Model of Spirituality is an overarching concern about getting to heaven rather than exercising the love of God and neighbor here and now, as strongly emphasized in the preaching of Jesus.

1. 
   

   The Scriptural Model of Spirituality, rediscovered by Christian scholars and emphatically endorsed by the documents of the Second Vatican Council, enabled the Church to recognize, recapture, and start to renew Christian teaching and values from the pure source of Scripture. Through the scholarly study of the original meaning of words and the cultural context in which Scripture was written, we probably have a better understanding of the actual intent of the scriptural authors in our time than any generation since the death of the apostles.

   The Scriptural Model represents a 180-degree turn from the Western Model. Scripture teaches that interior motivation is more important than external acts.

   *Intimacy with God, by Fr. Thomas Keating, Attitudes Toward God, Chapter 2 Part I (Internet) *centeringprayer.com/intimacy/intimacy02a.htm

   Part I

 

[DarkNight_FL]

???

Um, at the top of some of the pages in this forum is a banner on “How To Become A Catholic”. It contains what the US Council of Bishops state should be the program for people like me. I have stated that the parishes that actually do what the Bishops want are few and far between.

How does this make me a pre-Vatican II viewer? For that matter, what IS a pre-vatican II viewer? Curious minds want to know.

Part Two of Post

Intimacy with God,
by Fr. Thomas Keating
Attitudes Toward God
Chapter 2

This generation has finally been delivered by the Second Vatican Council from the destructive teaching called Jansenism, a distortion of the gospel and one of the heresies that insinuated itself into seminaries and the mainstream of Catholic teaching. Jansenism taught that the body is totally corrupt and that the salvation brought by Jesus Christ was not universal. The symbol of the latter doctrine is the crucifix with the arms of Jesus lifted straight above his head, indicating that he was not embracing the whole world, but only a chosen few. This negative view of human nature as hopelessly corrupt led to the practice of extreme penances. The doctrine took hold in France and spread throughout Europe through the emigrés fleeing the French Revolution. It infiltrated Irish seminaries and eventually came to America through immigrant priests. This pervasively distrustful attitude toward human nature, together with a pathological fear of God, dominated most Catholic educational institutions prior to the Second Vatican Council, long after Jansenism was condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities.

The attitudes of the Western Model of the self-outside-of-God tended to produce caricatures of God. In childhood we may have picked up these wrong attitudes toward God from parents or teachers. Well-intentioned but ill-conceived religious instruction can make God seem like a tyrant demanding instant obedience to his will, however arbitrary. Through myths and fairy tales, children know what tyrants are. A child who sees God as a tyrant is not going to want to go anywhere near him unless forced to do so.

Another attitude that may be communicated to a child is that of God as an implacable judge whose gavel is ever poised to bring down the verdict of guilty. Here again God is presented with intense overtones of fear or even terror. A third attitude is that of a policeman always on our trail, always on the watch to catch us in the least fault. Whenever this child thinks of God, off goes the emotional judgment that says, “This God, whatever they say about him in church, is dangerous. He is a tyrant, a policeman always on my trail, and a judge, ever ready to condemn me to eternal hellfire.”

These attitudes persist. Even theological training may not affect the emotions that have recorded the programming of early life and substantially condition one’s capacity to hear the teaching of the gospel. This belief system is like carrying a ball and chain around our feet. God has to go to incredible lengths to dissipate these unhealthy ideas, all of which could have been avoided if children were encouraged to develop a relationship of trust toward God, which parents and teachers, by their goodness and care, should model and nourish. The vocation of parents is to manifest in daily life the kind of love that God has for their children. That is surely one of the principal graces of the sacrament of matrimony.

*Intimacy with God, by Fr. Thomas Keating, Attitudes Toward God, Chapter 2 Part II, (Internet) *centeringprayer.com/intimacy/intimacy02b.htm

 

[Damascus]

I am so sad to see this. Puz- I see your point.

What is going on here?

I hated my RCIA class for good reasons, and now everyone here is giving testimony to silly reasons!

If time were the problem- I would have no problem

Worry about heresy.

That is a huge problem.

Geeze.

 

[DarkNight_FL]

I am so sad to see this. Puz- I see your point.

What is going on here?

I hated my RCIA class for good reasons, and now everyone here is giving testimony to silly reasons!

If time were the problem- I would have no problem

Worry about heresy.

That is a huge problem.

Geeze.

I am fully defending my RCIA team. I enjoy my classes which are lead by a Secular Franciscan. But I also went to his spirituality 101 classes at the retreat center. I support the RCIA program in it’s current state, I’m pointing out where the delta might be between what some might expect and what has been deployed. I was taking communion for a year without being a ‘card carrying’ Catholic. I felt guilty and made the full profession of my faith. RCIA is the least of my worries, it was the close friends from other denominations that flipped out that floored me. One of them suggested that I see a counselor because I had been brainwashed. Nice huh… She even went to a Mass with me one Sunday. I thought she was going to short circuit. Not like her strip mall non-denominational church was any picnic for me either, but I’d like to think I never suggested she see a counselor before joining it.

 

[puzzleannie]

Just bear in mind that RCIA incorporates people who are starting from different points, and have followed many different paths, and some have a lot farther to go than others. It is probably not helpful for a candidate to compare ones own journey with that of a fellow traveller who happens to by in formation along side you.

You are all their for each other, none of us does this alone, not even those who will be the only received into their parish this Easter, or whose preparation and study was accomplished via internet or onene with a priest or other catechist. Those in the class who have more knowledge are there to share with those who have less. Those who are more mature spiritually are there for those who are just beginning that awareness. (the two groups do not necessarily coincide, by the way).

We are in a community, we are all seeking fuller communion in Christ whether or not we have already been initiated. We are all on a path of continuing conversion, the difference being that RCIA candidates and catechumens are more immediately aware of and humbled by that fact than may be a lot of Catholics in the pews.

never got to my main point, which is that the Rites of Easter are a beginning, not an end, to spiritual progress, growth in knowledge of the Faith and experience in practice of the Faith. There is no requirement that one achieve the equivalent of an MA in theology in order to be received into the the Church. What is required is that one know enough to make and assent to the Profession of Faith, and know enough to fully accept the baptismal promises and the additional burdens and requirements of adhering to the Faith, and have what you need to live out that Faith.

Also the various rites themselves teach, inform, bless, form, catechize and are efficacious means of grace, they are not just amusing little ceremonies dreamed up by DREs with overactive imaginations.

 

[DarkNight_FL]

Just bear in mind that RCIA incorporates people who are starting from different points, and have followed many different paths, and some have a lot farther to go than others.

never got to my main point, which is that the Rites of Easter are a beginning, not an end, to spiritual progress, growth in knowledge of the Faith and experience in practice of the Faith. There is no requirement that one achieve the equivalent of an MA in theology in order to be received into the the Church. What is required is that one know enough to make and assent to the Profession of Faith, and know enough to fully accept the baptismal promises and the additional burdens and requirements of adhering to the Faith, and have what you need to live out that Faith.

The program has to be tailored like any other class to what might be considered the lowest common denominator. Not everyone is there for the same reason.

I have never had any reason to question how this curriculum was applied or taught. In my quote from a previous post I tried to make the point that there are times in many types of instruction where the student feels that he/she may have more knowledge than the instructor. In my case I thought that because I had been going to Catholic church for a year that I pretty much had it down. Like anything that humbles you however, you quickly figure out where your knowledge base falls on the continuum, especially when your sponsor and RCIA director both have an MA in Theology . As for sharing my knowledge, I believe that’s what I have tried to do here.

Perhaps talk of Jansenism and spiritual models may have muddied the water, but for me, that washed away visions of the Catholic church I knew as portrayed in movies, television, and more importantly from ‘cradle’ Catholics, again, through no fault of their own.

I hope that next year I can be an RCIA team member and can live up to everyone’s expectations, even those that know more than me (which could be everyone). I hope that God will guide my hand and heart and give me wisdom to say and do the right things to lead people not only to the church, but to their place at the table as part of The Trinity.

If even one thing that’s been said here causes anyone to: find the Holy Spirit that lives within them (within all of us), feel the flow of love between The Father and The Son passing through them, and find their true or **inner self then todays witness has been done.

-Peace and All Good-

**‘The inner self is not part of our being, it is our entire substantial reality itself, on its highest and most personal and most existential level. It is a new and indefinable quality of our living being.’ Cistercian Quarterly Review #18 (1983)

 

[jmcrae]

You keep reminding us (this thread and others) about the delta between what you believe is a perfect; or even a good/acceptable RCIA program and the current model that has been deployed.

Unfortunately, Andruchak isn’t in “the model that has been deployed” - he’s in a “make it up as you go along” one that’s being run by an untrained catechist who can’t tell the difference between a Catechumen and a Candidate, nor a nearly-fully catechized Christian and an uncatechized person.

Under the RCIA model, when correctly implemented, Andrushak (as a life-long practicing Anglican) should have simply been asked to assemble his baptismal paperwork, completed a series of three interviews, and been brought into the Church through a Profession of Faith.

There is no good reason for a life-long Anglican to do “breaking the Word” - he’s been reading the Bible all his life, already, and thank you, but he does know how to find the readings - in fact, he probably has most of them memorized already.

Yet, he’s being treated as though he’s never even seen a Bible before.

In a real RCIA; that is, one that follows the norms and guidelines of RCIA, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.

My advice to Andrushak is to stay the course: consider it a preview of Purgatory, grin and bear it, and get himself Confirmed - don’t quit and don’t get himself kicked out.

 

[puzzleannie]

look at the good side, with any luck, by this time next year Andy will be teaching RCIA at his parish and things will start looking up.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

Unfortunately, Andruchak isn’t in “the model that has been deployed” - he’s in a “make it up as you go along” one that’s being run by an untrained catechist who can’t tell the difference between a Catechumen and a Candidate, nor a nearly-fully catechized Christian and an uncatechized person.

Under the RCIA model, when correctly implemented, Andrushak (as a life-long practicing Anglican) should have simply been asked to assemble his baptismal paperwork, completed a series of three interviews, and been brought into the Church through a Profession of Faith.

There is no good reason for a life-long Anglican to do “breaking the Word” - he’s been reading the Bible all his life, already, and thank you, but he does know how to find the readings - in fact, he probably has most of them memorized already.

Yet, he’s being treated as though he’s never even seen a Bible before.

In a real RCIA; that is, one that follows the norms and guidelines of RCIA, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.

My advice to Andrushak is to stay the course: consider it a preview of Purgatory, grin and bear it, and get himself Confirmed - don’t quit and don’t get himself kicked out.

Under the RCIA model, when correctly implemented, Andrushak (as a life-long practicing Anglican) should have simply been asked to assemble his baptismal paperwork, completed a series of three interviews, and been brought into the Church through a Profession of Faith, along with First Confession and First Holy Communion And the Sacrament of Confirmation completing the Sacraments of Initiation.

 

[puzzleannie]

I think I can shed light on why some parishes put everybody through the same “program” with some insights gained by hobmobbing with my fellow RCIA ladies. People who have been doing this for a long time apparently have found that those who enter the Church through some abbreviated process, even though they have very good knowledge of doctrine and scripture, often become inactive or leave entirely in a few years.

The reason most often given is that they did not feel part of the parish, did not feel welcomed, especially as compared to their former denominations or congregations. I guess there is a strong sentiment, especially among the "RCIA is experiential) folks that equally important with the catechetical component is the community-building component, and integration into parish life. Evidently they feel participation in RCIA for everyone is supposed to make this happen.