Implementing a Vision

As Church, particularly on the parish level, I think that we have barely begun to give practical shape to the implications of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.  The Council document on the Liturgy describes the liturgy as the action of Christ. However, we still use the language of things for the sacraments; we speak about receiving the sacraments not initiating people into the mystery of Christ.

Sacraments are deeply personal because they are celebrations of faith. But the sacraments are not private; they are communitarian because they celebrate the interaction of the faith of the individual and the faith of the community.

However, I do not see evidence that this view has permeated the thinking of people at large. I find that parishioners have yet to take ownership of the responsibility for growing the Church. How many parishioners have ever extended an invitation to someone to explore the Christian faith? How many parishioners take responsibility for engaging with the catechumens in their faith journey?

It still seems a common practice to deal with the catechumenate as a program rather than as a faith journey. The invitation is extended to “join the RCIA” rather than to explore who Jesus is. The timetable often follows the calendar which is not necessarily the way faith develops.

The vision of Church that underlies the Rite of Initiation of calls for a renewal of parish life that remains to be implemented.

Adult Bptism

In the General Introduction to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (for use in the United States) we read:

In the sacraments of Christian initiation we are freed from the power of darkness and joined to Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.

Baptism incorporates us into Christ and forms us into God’s people.
Baptism is, above all, the sacrament of that faith by which, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we respond to the Gospel of Christ.

The preparation for baptism and Christian instruction are both of vital concern to God’s people, the Church, which hands on and nourishes the faith received from the apostles.

In the actual celebration, the people of God… should take an active part. Thus they will show their common faith and the shared joy with which the newly baptized are received into the community of the Church.

Prior to the Council, the focus of baptism was on the removal of original sin and the celebration was essentially private.

The revised rite for adult baptism looks to the paschal mystery of Christ, sees the Church in biblical terms as the people of God, identifies the goal as a faith response to the Gospel, and is communitarian.

Christian Initiation

One of the important and far reaching actions of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council was their decision in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy directing that the ancient practice of Christian Initiation be restored:

The catechumenate for adults, comprising several distinct steps, is to be restored and to be taken into use at the discretion of the local ordinary. By this, means the time of the catechumenate, which is intended as a period of suitable instruction, may be sanctified by sacred rites to be celebrated at successive intervals of time. (#64)

In January of 1972, the Congregation for Divine Worship published the “typical edition” of the rite for the Christian initiation of adults. An English translation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults was then prepared by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy and, as of September 1, 1988, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults became the mandatory rite for use in the United States.

In the United States, many “converts” are Christians, that is, they have already been baptized and are seeking admission to the Catholic Church.  There are also those who have been baptized and infants but never catechized. A catechumen however is a person who has never been baptized.

Pastoral practice in the United States often brings these three groups together. While there are benefits to this practice, it also runs the risk of minimizing the unique place of baptism in the life of a Christian.
Whereas earlier pastoral practice tended to focus on membership in the Catholic Church, the restoration of the catechumenate focuses attention on the process of conversion by which an individual seeks to be united to Christ as a disciple. We are called to discipleship not simply to membership.

The implications of this change in focus have yet to permeate our thinking. (Not long ago, I was present for the celebration of a baptism in which the priest spoke of membership in the local community and in the larger Church community but never mentioned Jesus or the Holy Spirit!)