Catechumenate leaders are fond of saying, “The RCIA is not a program; it’s a process.” But what does that really mean? I’ve encountered a lot of folks who talk about “process,” but what they are actually doing looks and feels very programmatic.

I’ll give you an example. I went to college in southern Missouri. It was not uncommon for a stranger to stop me on campus and ask if I knew Jesus as my personal savior. Now, on the surface, this seems like a process question. It seems like the evangelist is truly concerned about my relationship—my personal relationship—with Jesus.

But here’s the tip-off that this question was part of a program. First of all, it is a template question. Every good southern evangelical asks it, pretty much verbatim. Next, it didn’t really matter what my answer was. Yes, no, I don’t know, or (never say this unless you’ve got an hour to kill) I’m Catholic—it didn’t matter. The evangelist had a set pattern of replies, all designed to get me to “accept Jesus.”

For some of these folks (not all), it didn’t really matter who I was as a person. Whatever my own life of grace might have been like up to that point had no influence over their encounter with me. They knew what they were going to say and what they wanted me to say before they ever met me.

I worry that we have a similar evangelical program going on in a lot of our RCIA groups. When I can, I ask RCIA teams if they know what they will be teaching about on the third week of September (pick a week at random). A lot of them can tell me, even though they currently have no inquirers. They know what they are going to say before they have even met those they hope to evangelize. And they know what they want the inquirer to say back. Just open the ritual book to the Rite of Acceptance and read the example responses of the candidates. These examples have become the rote replies of thousands of inquirers, regardless of the lives of grace they may have lead up to that point.

Move from program to process

So how do we move away from program and toward process? A first step might be to define “process” a little more. If the RCIA is a process, what is the process for? Becoming Catholic? That’s not what the rite says. The rite of Christian initiation is a process of seeking God. It is a process of living the way of faith and conversion (see RCIA 1).

If that’s so, then we might say the RCIA is not a program; it’s a relationship. Our job is not to read from predetermined templates. It is to explore the mystery of grace at work in the individual inquirer standing before us.

Share your thoughts

How do you evangelize? How do you help your parishioners evangelize? How do you equip them to make accommodations and adjustments when they are faced with an actual inquirer? Please click on the comments link, and share your thoughts.

The Xaverian Brothers are at a small orphanage in Hinche, Haiti, undamaged but overwhelmed with an influx of children from Port au Prince. You can give on-line at xaverianbrothers.org, and read more at maisonfortune.org The bank has reopened there and the money will go right to work – the children in our parish have adopted this project, and many parishioners have made matching gifts.

Here is a list of resources for parishes to use for discussing and responding to the Haitian earthquake. Please add your comments about other resources you may know about.
 
 
 
 
 

Aid agencies

Compassion for Haiti: The Gift of Tears (Catholic Relief Services)
Catholic charities respond to Haiti crisis (video)
Catholic agencies prepare for long-term relief (NCR)
USA: urgent appeal for the people of Haiti (Jesuit Refugee Service)

Liturgy and prayer

Homily by Archbishop Carlson at Mass for victims in Haiti
How Can Catholics Help Haiti? (Archbishop Dolan-video)
Haiti, Eucharist and Justice: How the Cry of the Poor Affects our Worship (Joyce Donahue)
A prayer for dreamers amid the nightmare in Haiti (TeamRCIA)
A Prayer for Haiti (Diana Macalintal)
Una oración para después del terremoto en Haití (Diana Macalintal, tr. Marilu S. Covani)
Haiti—Does liturgy matter? (Today’s Parish)

Education and catechesis

Resources For Catholic Educators and Youth Ministers (Catholic Relief Services)
How Catholics Can Talk About and Deal with the Tragedy in Haiti (Joe Paprocki)
Why does he permit earthquakes in the poorest country in the hemisphere? (Fleming Rutledge)
Why God Allowed Haiti Disaster (Archbishop Dolan-SIRUS XM Radio)
Poverty Lessons From Haiti (New York Times)
Response to Pat Robertson (Paul Snatchko)

General information

CIA World Factbook on Haiti
8 Things to Keep in Mind About Haiti (The Huffington Post)
Interactive map of the Haitian earthquake (MSNBC)
Photos from Haiti (daylife)

I arrived in Houston a couple of hours ago for the 48th(!) Southwest Liturgical Conference Study Week. I’ve been on a plane all day, and I was famished. I fled the high-priced and too-glossy hotel restaurants in search of a neighborhood bar. The Holy Spirit has led me to a hole-in-the-wall place with over a hundred microbrews, a delicious and suitably unorganic bar menu, free wifi, and a garage band playing in front of 30-foot screen showing college basketball highlights.

My topics tomorrow are “Liturgy and Catechesis: A Practical Method for Teaching the Faith” and “Whole Community Liturgy.” As I was tweaking my slides in between bites of dinner, I realized they are really the same topic from two different starting points. The first one looks at the liturgy from the point of view of the catechist. If I’m a teacher, what do I need the liturgy to do so I can teach from it. And the second looks at liturgy from the point of view of everyone else. If I’m a parish leader, how does the liturgy give flesh to and embody who we are as a parish?

What is common to both workshops, of course, is the liturgy. When I was starting out in ministry, it was pretty much a given that liturgy was the central and most important enterprise of the parish. Nowadays, that idea almost seems passé in some circles. But not to me. The world is crying out for the hope and liberation we celebrate and manifest in the liturgy.

The recent earthquake in Haiti is a painful example. How can the church provide any kind of solace for such a horrible tragedy? I saws a new report at the end of the day today, the combined Catholic effort from around the world had collected $5 million in relief funds. That’s laudable and important. But Bill Gates donated a fifth of that by himself. Catholics are required to provide as much physical relief as we can, but that is not the unique gift we bring to this, or any, crisis. We bring hope. We bring the good news that death cannot last. We bring salvation from all darkness, pain, and suffering.

And there is one way—only one—in which we bring that good news. When we offer our sacrifice of praise in the liturgy, we make present a new reality, a new reign, that is in, but not of, this world. It is our priestly sacrifice that reorders the world. Or rather, reconciles the world to its original order.

If you’ve been to Sunday Mass lately, its relevance to the situation in Haiti may not seem clear. If that’s so, I submit it is not because the liturgy has nothing to say to our situation today. Rather, it is because we are not saying the liturgy well. If we are letting our own agendas filter through on Sunday, the good news can be muted. If we are easing up a bit on the two-edged sword of the gospel so as not to give offense, then neither are we giving a clear message of liberation.

So by all means, let’s dig deep and give as much material relief as we possibly can over these next weeks and months. But at the same time, let us invest in music that stirs the soul, preaching that shakes us to the bone, ritual that moves us to holy awe, and a warm embrace of the strangers who are not only on a far-away island but also sitting in the pew right behind us.

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit southern Haiti, ten miles from the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Heavy damage, severe injuries, and serious loss of life are expected.

Two Americans still missing in the rubble are Catholic aid workers from the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut. 

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. About 80% of Haitians live in poverty.

Donate now to Catholic Relief Services emergency relief in Haiti.

A Prayer After the Earthquake in Haiti

Lord, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined,
we plead for your mercy.

As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are
on this ever-changing, ever-moving,
fragile planet we call home.
Yet you have promised never to forget us.

Do not forget us now.

Today, so many people are afraid.
They wait in fear of the next tremor.
They hear the cries of the injured amid the rubble.
They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with wails of grief
and the names of missing dead.

Comfort them, Lord, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,
and shelter them under your wings when homes no longer exist.

Embrace in your arms those who died so suddenly this day.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.

Pierce, too, our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,
as the poorest on this side of the earth
find only misery upon misery.
Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day,
to work for justice always,
and to pray unceasingly for those without hope.

And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life’s daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands.

For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground,
your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.

Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
now and forever. Amen.

Copyright © 2010, Diana Macalintal. Permission is given to reprint.

Photo: "Weeping Christ" by Broken Lens via Flickr.com. The sculpture, titled "And Jesus Wept," is on the grounds of the Saint Joseph’s Old Cathedral and the diocesan chancery offices for Oklahoma City, OK, which is right across the street from the Murrah Building Memorial.

Is your church taking advantage of Facebook? I guarantee you, many of your parishioners are there. And lots more can be with a little encouragement from parish leaders. This Web site offers some terrific suggestions for ways you can use Facebook to promote your parish. And 8 O’Clock Coffee has a simple, brief video describing how to set up a Facebook page. Post a link to the video on your Web site, and encourage your parishioners to sign up!

While you’re at it, become a fan of Religion Teacher’s Journal on Facebook. Click here to become a fan.

Connecting liturgy and catechesis.

• Liturgy as source of catechesis

I wish to pose a question:  is there an inverse relationship between how long one sits in Church, and how much grace one can receive?

I don’t mean the question to be blasphemous, or to claim God doesn’t have the power to restore our souls no matter what the circumstances are, but if someone is sitting in Church longer than they want to be there, is it really doing them any good?  And how much of a responsibility do we have to be sensitive to this phenomenon?  Or do we as ministers have an obligation to push the importance of Church and fight the ever-decreasing attention span of our members?

One example:  when I worked for St. Aloysius before moving to the Reformed Church of Bronxville, we always planned the Easter Vigil so it would be complete in 90 minutes.  We generally were very close, but to accomplish it we sacrificed the Old Testament scriptures, only proclaiming the minimum.  I remember feeling sad that we were missing half the story, but happy that our church gradually increased attendance each year.  Along those same lines, when I attended Easter Vigil at St. Francis Xavier in NewYork this year, it was over 2 hours long with every piece of the liturgy in tact, and the most beautiful Liturgy I think I’ve ever participated in.

Thoughts?

Diana Macalintal and I will be copresenting a workshop in Orlando this weekend at the Fashion Me a People conference. Our topic is the Liturgy of the Word as a source of catechesis. Our goal is to help participants learn techniques for drawing out and extending the catechetical content of the Liturgy of the Word. We also hope they will learn how to grow more aware of the mystery of revelation that infuses the living Word of God.

We’re going to base the workshop on the opening liturgy of the conference. Now here’s the tricky part. We don’t know what the liturgy will entail. We don’t know the music, the readings, the structure of the rite, or the prayers that will be prayed. So how can we possibly create a “catechesis” based on the prayer?

There are two ways to understand the process of catechesis. The most common is to equate catechesis with education. Resources abound for those who want to catechize from a classroom model. The models can be set up in a scope and sequence format, and teachers can very efficiently plan out the content of their classes for the upcoming semester.

However, a more traditional understanding of catechesis is to see it as a process of entering into the mystery of Christ. The liturgy is the primary way in which we enter into the paschal mystery. And catechesis is a deep, systematic reflection on that paschal encounter with Christ.

So, from that perspective, we cannot determine ahead of time what the content of our catechesis will be this weekend. We cannot do so because we have not yet had this weekend’s encounter with the mystery of Christ along with all our brothers and sisters who will be gathered in Orlando.

If Christ is really present in his word and really present in the gathered assembly of believers, we should learn a powerful lesson from our encounter with that Presence this weekend. I’m looking forward to finding out what it is.

I think we all agree that we should be welcoming toward inactive Catholics and be reaching out to them. Sometimes, however, we have a giant “IF” behind our welcome. We will welcome them if they meet certain criteria.

Melanie Rigney and Anna M. Lanave have written a questionnaire to help us examine some of our assumptions. They recommend that parish leaders fill out the questionnaire below, and then discuss it with some parishioners who were once estranged from the church. The questionnaire and lots of other helpful information appears in their new book, When They Come Home: Ways to welcome returning Catholics (Twenty-Third Publications).

If you have moment, please take the poll. I’d also be interested in hearing your thoughts. Click on the comments link to share.