Catechetical Session, Easter 5C

May 6, 2007

Fifth Sunday of Easter, C

Core beliefs

You can discuss one or more of these teachings of the church today. Use your powers of discernment to make your choice based on three criteria:

1. What have the catechumens been asking about?
   
2. What issues came up during the dismissal reflections?
   
3. What, in your opinion, needs clarification for the catechumens?

• God’s plan of salvation
  
• The unity of all Christians
  
• The dignity of all humanity

Readings

Acts 14:21-27
Revelation 21:1-5
John 13:31-33, 34-35

Catechist Wisdom

Strengthen your wisdom powers by reflecting on the readings yourself before the catechetical session.

The first reading reminds us that the mission of the gospel imposes hardships on the faithful. This isn’t a comfortable message to hear, and it isn’t always expressed powerfully enough to the catechumens. What must be stressed is that they are signing up for a mission to preach salvation to all nations. The travels of Paul and Barnabas are a metaphor for how far and to what lengths we must go to tell the whole world about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God’s deepest desire is that all people be reconciled to God, and we are the agents of that reconciliation. God’s desire to draw all people into the Divine love is so strong that even the unbaptized can be saved if they have a sincere heart. Nevertheless, we find the fullness of God’s promise in complete union with Christ.

The reading from Revelation is a vision of the end of time when the Kingdom of God will be revealed in its fullness. John’s vision takes place on the Lord’s Day, and we can conclude this vision is a liturgical vision. In other words, the Sunday liturgy is always a vision of the fullness of God’s Reign of justice. John sees the full Divinity of God dwelling with the human race. If we believe in John’s vision of humanity, we cannot tolerate any injustice or oppression that would devalue the innate dignity with which we were created. Those who have been made in the image of God must always see themselves as godly.

Our god-likeness is a pure gift that flows from the love of God. In the gospel reading, Jesus makes this crystal clear to the disciples. In the context of the story, they might not yet know the full implications of Jesus’ exhortation: “As I have loved you….” However, John’s community certainly knew and we must make sure the catechumens know that Jesus loved us all the way to the cross. We are called to love others with as much commitment and passion. Jesus could love us that much because of the love he shared with the Father. At our baptism, we are drawn completely into the Divine love of the Holy Trinity and are thereby given the strength to love each other as God loves us.

Teaching Powers

Based on your discernment of the core belief(s) to emphasize today, connect one or more of these church teachings with what the catechumens experienced in the liturgy and what they have experienced in their daily lives this past week. Ask the sponsors to help the catechumens make these connections during the discussion.

God’s plan of salvation

(see CCC 777-780)



• The purpose of the liturgy is the gather those whom God calls. John’s vision in Revelation is just such a gather or a “convocation.” It is an assembly of those whom God's Word calls together to form the People of God. The gathering of God’s people is nourished with the Body of Christ and becomes the Body of Christ.
• In a very elegant way, the church of believers is both the means and the goal of God's plan of salivation. The church comes into being through the words and actions of Jesus Christ. The ultimate action of Jesus is his death on the cross and his resurrection. Through the subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the church becomes the Body of Christ and therefore the sacrament of salivation. The church is, however, still human and therefore imperfect. We will be perfected in death and in the resurrection of all believers into glory of heaven just as in John’s vision of the assembly of all the redeemed of the earth (cf. Rev 14:4).
• The assembly of believers is both visible and spiritual. The church is the Mystical Body of Christ both, human and divine.
  

The unity of all Christians

(see CCC 1271)



• All those who have been baptized, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church, are part of the Mystical Body of Christ.
• All who have been baptized share in the promise of God’s eternal salvation.
  

The dignity of all humanity

(see CCC 380-384)



• The very purpose of human existence is to be the image of God in the world. The fullness of this purpose is made manifest in Jesus, the “image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15).
• Integral to becoming the image of God is entering fully into our relationships with other humans. God did not create us to be solitary being. From the beginning, we were intended to be in relationship, just as the Holy Trinity is in relationship (see Gen 1:27).
  
• The original holiness and justice of the first man and woman before sin flowed from their friendship with each other and with God. That is the “paradise” our faith journey leads us back to.
  

Correlations with protocols from the Office of the Catechism

Saving the World

Ask the catechumens to reflect back what they heard today. Ask them to name one or two practical ways they will put their new learning into practice in the coming week.

Prayer

Close with a prepared prayer or a spontaneous prayer led by one of the team members or one of the sponsors.

Five Ways to Preach Mystagogically

These approaches to preaching mystagogically are defined by Jan Michael Joncas in Forum Essay, Number 4: Preaching the Rites of Christian Initiation (Chicago, Illinois: Liturgy Training Publications, 1994) 95-117.

The five approaches outlined by Joncas are:

1. hallowing cosmic symbols;
2. exploring anthropological patterns;
3. celebrating biblical history;
4. analyzing beliefs and behaviors; and
5. revealing the future present.

According to Joncas, these are general techniques used by the majority of mystagogical preachers from the 2nd to the 5th centuries of the church. These preachers looked to the phenomenology of the heavens and nature to find correlations with the symbols of the rites. They were keen observers of human ways of life, social structures, and secular activities. They wove images and references to various scriptural passages that evoked the same symbols, whether or not the context of the passage related to the context of the rite. Their catecheses and homilies were often pointed critiques of beliefs and behaviors that went against their understanding of the Christian lifestyle. Finally, they employed a realized eschatology in the use of their images, placing the event of the rite within the vision of the eschaton so as to lead the hearers to praise of God and conversion of heart.

Joncas cautions that the use of these approaches to craft initiatory homilies for today must take into consideration that the world of the 4th century is much different from ours. Advances in our understanding of society, cosmology, scripture, medicine, and even demonology would make a direct translation of these approaches inappropriate for contemporary hearers. Nonetheless, if interpreted and translated into a contemporary style, these approaches can give preachers today some guidelines for crafting mystagogical texts in the patristic tradition.

Five Principles for Mystagogical Preaching and Catechesis

In the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, only two pages of texts are given to describe the period of mystagogy and post-baptismal catechesis. Below are the five main things you need to know about mystagogy during this period of the initiation process (from RCIA 244-247):

• Mystagogy and mystagogical preaching leads the neophytes and the community to a deepened grasp of the paschal mystery and helps them make it part of their lives through



• meditation on the Gospel


• sharing in eucharist, and


• doing works of charity.


• Mystagogy and mystagogical preaching introduces the neophytes into a fuller and more effective understanding of the mysteries through the Gospel and the sacraments.



• The main setting for mystagogy is the Sunday Mass.



• At Masses during the Easter season where neophytes are present, it is recommended to use the readings for Year A.



• Mystagogy and mystagogical preaching renews the inspiration and outlook of the faithful and brings them closer to the neophytes.

What is Mystagogy?

Below is part of the unformatted text from a bulletin insert that you can download, print, and copy for FREE for use in your parishes to help you catechize about mystagogy. Please include the author and copyright information on any copies you make.

Get the fully-formatted ready-to-copy bulletin insert (pdf) here.

Mystagogy: Savoring the Mystery of God

by Diana Macalintal
© 2007, Diana Macalintal.
All rights reserved.

Whodunit? Secret? Science?

God is a mystery, but not like an Agatha Christie novel, or a secret reserved only for special people, or a math problem to be solved.

God is a mystery in the way that grandma’s love is a mystery; in the way you look at your child and can’t imagine anything more beautiful; in the way you marvel at how deeply you still love your spouse even after so many years of being together.

The mystery of God is something that makes us feel so immensely close to God and at the same time so in awe of the tremendous, incomprehensible wonder of God. There is no way to completely, fully express this feeling or describe it to another person. We can only say the same thing we tell children who ask us how they will know when they’re in love—“you’ll know it when it happens to you.”

The word “sacrament” comes from the same Greek root for the word “mystery.” Often, at the beginning of Mass, the priest will say, “to prepare ourselves to celebrate these sacred mysteries….” Every time we gather to celebrate the sacraments, we enter deeply into the mysterious love of God.

We experience this divine mystery most fully in the Eucharist—that intimate act of eating and drinking together with those named after the one we love the most: Christ.

Reflecting on the Mysteries

Those who have been preparing to be initiated into the Church and are then baptized, confirmed, and welcomed to the Eucharistic table at the Easter Vigil are the newest members to be “christened,” that is, named “Christ.” They are those who have most recently and fully been hit by God’s mysterious love. Now, they know what it means to be a member of the Body of Christ because they have experienced it for themselves.

Anyone who is new to love and the overwhelming nature of it needs time to reflect on what happened to them. This “looking backward” to a specific moment when they experienced God’s mysterious presence gives them direction and renewed commitment for moving forward. Just like looking back at wedding pictures can give us more hope and joy for the future, reflecting on the experience of the “mysteries”—the sacraments—can renew our commitment to live according to Christ’s name which was given to us at baptism.

The neophytes are those who were recently initiated into the Church through the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. During the Easter season, and often throughout the year after, they spend time reflecting on the mysteries. This process is called “mystagogy.” But their practice of mystagogy is simply a participation in what all baptized Christians are called to do. All of us who are baptized, whether last year or many years ago, are called to constantly reflect on our experience of God, discern its meaning, renew our commitment to our baptismal promises, and commit ourselves to living those promises in the ordinary events of our daily life.

Click here to read a step-by-step way to do mystagogy.

Mystagogy My Mother Could Do

The content of faith is the content of my mother’s or any mother’s life. That is because faith happens in and through our daily life. What we do on Sunday is simply one expression of our faith. We need to connect the messy un-“holy” events of daily life with God and all the things we call “holy.” But the most common mistake people make when trying to make sense of life and faith is they go into “Hallmark greeting card” mode. That is, when they talk about faith, they give religious platitudes like “God loves me,” or “Jesus answered my prayer.” Though these may be true, they won’t necessarily lead to conversion. In other words, it won’t change the world; but mystagogy will. This way of reflecting makes faith relevant to daily life, and makes daily life an expression of faith. But you don’t need a theology degree to be a “mystagogue.” Here are some simple steps to uncovering the mystery of faith that even my mother could do.

Step 1: Choose an event
Sharing faith starts with an event that engages us or makes us feel deep emotion. Family reunions, Easter dinner, graduation, a child’s birth, friend’s death, the shared experience of watching a movie or hearing a song—all these are ripe with moments in which the mystery of faith can be uncovered. During the event, pay close attention to all your senses (what you see, hear, touch, taste, smell) and to what you feel. Engage fully in the experience.

Step 2: Remember what happened
After the event, gather with others who experienced the same thing. Ask these questions: What did you see? What did you hear? What do you remember most? How did that make you feel? Be very concrete in your memories. For example, “I smelled bread baking when I came in the door, and that made me feel welcomed, like I belonged there.”

Step 3: Reflect on the bigger picture
What else is going on in your life that needs to be connected to this concrete experience and memory? What issues is your family dealing with? What concerns do you have at work? What are some major events happening in your community or in the world? For example, “That smell of bread baking makes me think of my own family and how I worry about making sure they have enough to eat. I worry about my job and if I’ll still have it next month. I think also of the man I see every morning on the street corner asking for money for food.”

Step 4: Connect with your faith
In this step ask what this memory teaches you about God, about Christ, about church, about community. For example, “My feeling of belonging when I smelled that bread baking teaches me that family can be anyone I share food with. It reminds me of all those Bible stories of Jesus eating meals with others and how we share bread and wine with strangers at Mass every Sunday. These strangers we call brothers and sisters because we eat together. It teaches me that no matter what, I can depend on my family, my community.” Find out what the Church and your parish teach about your insight. Connect it to a story in the Bible, and find out what scripture teaches about this.

Step 5: Make a change
This is the “so-what” step. What will you do differently in your life now that you’ve made these connections with your faith? Perhaps you might decide to participate in Communion with different eyes, really looking at each person in the Communion procession as your family. Maybe you’ll choose to begin each dinner with a simple prayer. You might get others in your family or parish to talk more about issues of homelessness and hunger. You can start a support group for those who have lost jobs or are looking for work.

When we reflect on our everyday life experiences in this way, our faith can and will change the world, one mother at a time.

This article by Diana Macalintal originally appeared in Eucharistic Ministries #233, August 2003.

Catechetical session, Easter 4C

April 29, 2007

Fourth Sunday of Easter, C

Core beliefs

You can discuss one or more of these teachings of the church today. Use your powers of discernment to make your choice based on three criteria:

1. What have the catechumens been asking about?
   
2. What issues came up during the dismissal reflections?
   
3. What, in your opinion, needs clarification for the catechumens?

• The Holy Trinity
  
• Apostolic mission of the church
  
• Salvation of all creation

Readings

Acts 13:14, 43-52
Revelation 7:9, 14-17
John 10:27-30

Catechist Wisdom

Strengthen your wisdom powers by reflecting on the readings yourself before the catechetical session.

Through the story of Paul and Barnabas, the first reading highlights the church’s universal mission to preach the Good News of salvation to all the world. The “Gentiles” are a metaphor for all those in the world whom God loves. We, as members of the church, take the energy, passion, and courage of Paul and Barnabas as our inspiration.

The second reading gives us a vision of the “destination” of our salvation. The goal of salvation is complete love and unity, with no divisions, among all the nations and races of people and with God in heaven. This is a reflection of the unity of the Holy Trinity.

The gospel reminds us that it is the love of Christ that is the source and cause of our salvation. It is an intimate love, a love that is shared between Christ and the Father. The dynamism of their love is a creative Spirit, so real and powerful that it makes them (and us) one.

Teaching Powers

Based on your discernment of the core belief(s) to emphasize today, connect one or more of these church teachings with what the catechumens experienced in the liturgy and what they have experienced in their daily lives this past week. Ask the sponsors to help the catechumens make these connections during the discussion.

The Holy Trinity

(see CCC 261-267)



• The mystery of the Trinity is the core belief of all our beliefs. It is foundational to all the rest of what we believe. Like the mystery of love, we can never fully understand it. However, with God's help, we will grow to know more and more about the Holy Trinity.
  
• One of the ways we grow to understand the Trinity is through Jesus' incarnation. Jesus reveals God to us, and we realize he is one with the Father.
  
• We also know that through Jesus' death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church. The mission of the Holy Spirit is exactly the same as Jesus' mission. That understanding reveals to us that the Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son. "With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified" (Nicene Creed).
  
• We believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. This was a very important controversy in the fourth century church. It simply means that the Holy Spirit is equally the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.
  
• We also learn more deeply about the Holy Trinity because, through the grace of baptism, we are drawn into the dynamic life of the Trinity. We learn about the Trinity "up close and personal." We are baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
  
• We do not believe in three Gods. This is important. We believe in only one God. And we believe that God is three separate persons, all equal in glory. It can be confusing to think about, but remember this is not about physical science. It is about an absolute unity of love.
  
• Because God is an absolute unity of love, all of God's actions are also one. We cannot assign different jobs to different persons as though the other persons are not involved. The Catechism says it this way: "Within the single divine operation each shows forth what is proper to him in the Trinity, especially in the divine missions of the Son's Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit" (267).

Apostolic mission of the church

(see CCC 866-870)



• The church is one Body. We become part the church and part of the one Body through baptism. In baptism, we are given new life by the one Spirit for one purpose: to bring hope to the world.
  
• The life given to the church by the Spirit through baptism makes the church holy. The fact that we are still sinners and yet made holy is what gives the world hope.
  
• The holiness we have and the hope we offer is universal. It is for everyone. That's what "catholic" means. We are sent to the whole world, even our enemies, even sinners greater than ourselves, to offer the one hope.
  
• This universal sending, and the work we do to proclaim the message of hope, is what we mean when we say the church is apostolic. We follow the example of the apostles and we continue the work of the apostles. We do this under the leadership of the Pope and the bishops who are the successors of the apostles.

Salvation of all creation

(see CCC 315, 374, 384)



• God is the source of all creation and has a plan for creation. Creation itself is a witness to God's love for us. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, God effects the salvation of everything in the cosmos.
  
• The salvation of Creation through Christ is so transformative that it is a glorious new creation. Christ restores Creation to it's original holiness before sin entered the world.

Correlations with protocols from the Office of the Catechism

Saving the World

Ask the catechumens to reflect back what they heard today. Ask them to name one or two practical ways they will put their new learning into practice in the coming week.

Prayer

Close with a prepared prayer or a spontaneous prayer led by one of the team members or one of the sponsors.

Holy Saturday

Today there is a great silence over the earth, for the King sleeps. The earth has trembled and fallen still, for the Lord sleeps in his fleshly nature; in the netherworld he is arousing those who have slept for ages. God is dead in the flesh, and has shaken Sheol to its foundtions.

—From an ancient homily for Holy Saturday

Bulletin Inserts on the RCIA

Are you looking for some bulletin insert material to help explain the catechumenate process to your parishioners? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has a press release on their Web site that details the steps of the initiation process in question and answer format. The text is written in clear, simple English.

Click here to read all the bulletin inserts from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

One example from the USCCB's website is below:

What is the RCIA?

The RCIA, which stands for Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, is a process through which non-baptized men and women enter the Catholic Church. It includes several stages marked by study, prayer and rites at Mass. Participants in the RCIA are known as catechumens. They undergo a process of conversion as they study the Gospel, profess faith in Jesus and the Catholic Church, and receive the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Holy Eucharist. The RCIA process follows the ancient practice of the Church and was restored by the Second Vatican Council as the normal way adults prepare for baptism. In 1974 the Rite for Christian Initiation for Adults was formally approved for use in the United States.

How to do Mystagogy with the Neophytes in Easter

Frank C. Senn writes about the mystagogical process for neophytes in the early church:

During the week after Easter Day, the neophytes attended the liturgy daily, wearing their white robes, while the bishops instructed them in the mysteries (sacraments) they had just experienced…. The faithful were also permitted to attend these sessions during the “week of white robes” and to ask questions of the bishop as he sat in his chair (cathedra) and expounded upon the mysteries of the faith. (The People’s Work: A Social History of the Liturgy, 70-71.)

Perhaps your bishop would never be able to clear his schedule for daily Mass at the cathedral during Easter Week. But are you sure? Have you asked him? And perhaps the neophytes would not attend in any significant numbers. But are you sure? Have you asked them?

If the bishop in his cathedra, surrounded by the still-damp neophytes, with the faithful also gathered, asking insightful questions is an ideal that just can’t happen in your diocese, how close could you come? Here are some possibilities. Click on comments to add your own ideas:

1. In larger dioceses, ask one or more of the associate bishops to fill in.
2. Ask the deans or monsignors of the diocese to each take a day of “cathedra” duty during Easter Week.
3. Ask the bishop to write a mystagogical homily for each day of Easter Week that might be read or adapted by the homilists of the diocese.
4. Record the bishop’s mystagogical homilies and upload as podcast on the diocesan Web site.
5. Provide a place on the Web site for the faithful to ask questions of the bishop about his homilies.
6. Focus smaller. Invite the neophytes of a given deanery or region to gather for weekday liturgy and mystagogical preaching.
7. Focus still smaller. Ask your pastor to prepare a series of msytagogical homilies for Easter Week.
8. For the neophytes who cannot be present for weekday liturgies, e-mail the homilies to them. “Require” them to respond with at least three questions.
9. In any of the options above, invite the faithful to ask their questions as part of the homily.
10. Publicize the mystagogical nature of this “week of white robes” throughout the diocese, deanery, or parish.
11. Begin now to make it clear to the catechumens that they will be expected to be at the liturgies during the “week of white robes” after their own initiation.

When Do You Dismiss during Triduum?

During the Triduum, the question arises about when to dismiss the Elect and the catechumens. (If you are engaged in a year-round process, you will likely have both.) If parish leaders understand the liturgical role that the unbaptized have in worship, it will be clear that the Elect and the catechumens are dismissed before the priestly action of the liturgy begins.

Holy Thursday

In the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the first action restricted to the baptized priesthood is the prayer of the faithful. So the Elect and the catechumens would be dismissed before the general intercessions. They would ordinarily be present for and participate in the washing of the feet if your parish chooses to celebrate that option.

Good Friday

Likewise during the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, the first act exclusively performed by the baptized priesthood is the offering of the General Intercessions. So, just as on Sunday and at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Elect and the catechumens would be kindly dismissed before this prayer.

Who leads them?

In many (all?) communities, it would be a hardship to ask a catechist to leave the worshiping assembly on these days to lead the Elect and catechumens in the dismissal reflection. And, in fact, there is no need to. The Elect will have been participating in dismissal reflections for a year or more by this point. One or more of them should have no difficulty leading the reflection sessions.

Easter

If you are practicing a year-round initiation process, you will have catechumens who will not be baptized at this year’s Easter Vigil. Should they participate in the Easter Vigil? Two pastoral difficulties present themselves in this case. The first is that the powerful symbols and ritual actions of the Vigil may have less impact the second (or third) time around, in the year the catechumens will be celebrating their own initiation. Wouldn’t it be more pastorally effective for them to experience the great Paschal fire, the Exsultet, the extensive readings and prayers of this night, and so on, for the first time on the night of their own baptism?

The second pastoral issue is who would lead them in their dismissal reflection? Unlike the Elect, the catechumens are unlikely to have a great deal of experience with this process, and it would be a great hardship to ask a catechist to be absent for the first time in which the neophytes participate in the Eucharist.

The best solution, perhaps, is to have the catechumens present at the Easter Sunday liturgy—along with the neophytes in their white robes—and to ask a catechist to lead the dismissal at that liturgy.

Triduum Dismissal
When do you dismiss?	We dismiss the Elect and the catechumens from the Mass of the Lord's Supper. We dismiss the Elect and the catechumens from the Celebration of the Lord's Passion. We dismiss the catechumens from the Easter Vigil. We dismiss the catechumens from the Easter Sunday liturgy. We do not dismiss anyone during the Triduum
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