Some parishes, I have been told, have developed ways to bring people into the community life of their parish after their RCIA experience. Of course that is best, but there are still ways for you to get involved.
They do NOT “drop you like a stone”. You will have become acquainted with many others and you can even sit in on the next RCIA class if you want to learn more or meet others. You can volunteer for different things. If you can sing , read well, etc, you can help out. There are sooo many things to volunteer for. I take care of some of the candles in our Church and would LOVE to have a helper. You become acquainted faster that way and learn as you go. God Bless, Memaw
One of the goals of RCIA – or at least one of my goals – is to integrate someone into the parish community. In my parish we have people visit with members of different ministries and groups to find the place(s) where they will fit in once RCIA is over. RCIA is step one, and we hope to get them on a solid footing for step two – the rest of their lives. I now see former catechumens and candidates who are involved as lectors, EMs, ushers, catechists, feeding the hungry, working with St. Vincent de Paul, serving on the parish council, being members of small Christian communities, serving as sponsors, working with youth ministry, serving coffee and donuts after Mass, and undoubtedly roles I’m not thinking of.
This is true. Although RCIA ended and we didn’t do Mystagogia, I did know more people when it was over and other people had stepped in sort of as mentors to me. The head sacristan asked me to become a sacristan, which I will be starting next month, and I also signed up for Eucharistic Adoration once a week. I know a lot of people by name now. I do feel that I was absorbed into the Faith Community of our Parish.
As a confirmed Catholic who has received the grace of God to spread the Gospel, I would hope that is what you will be doing. Sometimes we do this in groups or pairs or even as individuals. BTW spreading the Word is not preaching from the Bible: it’s living the Gospel so as to bring others to Christ and His Church. There are many ways to do this: I choose to use, as one of my methods, to post on specific sites such as CAF.
Your syllabus is similar to ours, except that we always have mystagogy after initiation at the Easter Vigil. Mystagogy lasts 4 - 6 weeks, and, among other things, presents ways to become involved in the various aspects of parish life; for example, three from last year’s class are now members of the choir, one [a sponsor] is on parish council, and one [a former Catechumen] will be joining the RCIA team. Nobody is ‘dropped’. **
That was nice of you.
The rites culminate reception of the sacraments of initiation.
Who is “they”?
It is super important that you understand RCIA is NOT a course at all. RCIA is the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. This is a series of liturgical rites within the Church, with different rites for the unbaptized and baptized, that lead up to and culminate in the sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist).
We were givien a copy of the CCC the first class. Yes it is a form of instructions into the Catholic Faith. And they were encouraged to read the CCC. I am a cradle Catholic, love my faith and am pretty knowledgeable in it ( I taught CCD for nearly 20 years and taught the religion class in the 5 day school for 3 years), but I thoroughly enjoyed the RCIA class. I was a sponsor. We all learned the same thing no matter what we were there for. Only one person dropped out and that was from family pressure. She said she would be back another time. I hope she is. God Bless, Memaw
I wonder if that’s standard for all RCIA classes? In my RCIA class they gave us a CCC, Bible (NABRE), Kreeft’s “Catholic Christianity” and a binder to keep all our handouts and our syllabus in. I remember thinking then, and still think, that the Church must make a significant investment in RCIA as those materials were given to us with no commitment from us as to whether we would continue.
No, it is not standard. You will find parishes within a diocese use different materials and different approaches as to how they go about teaching the faith. In every parish I attempted rcia there was a charge for the materials, $20 for the youcat hand outs, $26 for what they call the compendium version and $30 for the original.