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Written by Fr. Michael Fones, O.P.
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Tuesday, 06 February 2007 14:00 |
Sherry and I are having some fun grappling with various ideas for our new workshop, Making Disciples. One of the sections we will have in that workshop will be about RCIA. How can we make it a more effective evangelizing process that introduces people to the basic kerygma, or proclamation of the gospel? How can we provide an environment that fosters and supports conversion to Christ and His Church?
One critical question involves the problem of trying to understand where people are on their journey of faith, and recognizing the different needs people will have because of their diverse backgrounds. For example, should the Buddhist who's becoming Catholic be in the same enquiry group as the practicing, life-long evangelical? While most parishes generally have separate RCIA "tracks" for the unbaptized and baptized, few, if any, recognize distinctions within those groups. Yet young adults who've grown up in a post-modern, post-Christian world have different questions and attitudes from the baby-boomer, for example. The former atheist may have a radically different set of questions than the former Lutheran or baptized but uncatechized Catholic. You see the challenge!
One approach we've begun to experiment with is the possibility of asking different questions of different groups of people. For example, for an unbaptized person we might ask, "If you could describe your relationship with God based on a relationship you already know, which relationship would be the best analogy?"
For the baptized but non-catechized Catholic or the candidate, we might preface that question with,
"In your relationship with God, do you tend to relate more to one Person of the Trinity more than the others? If so, with which one, and with what human relationship you're familiar with would you compare it?"
So how about you? Would you care to answer whichever question is appropriate to your situation? Here are a few possible relationships to get you thinking…
Father, Mother, Spouse, Professor, Friend, Mentor, Lord, King, Shepherd, Colleague, Collaborator, Enemy, Judge, Critic, Brother, Sister, Servant, Rescuer, Doctor, Healer, Companion, Guide, Counselor, etc.
Please feel free to use a relationship that is not listed above, or a combination thereof.
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