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Weekly Bulletin Calendar Daily Readings |
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Baptismal Preparation Religious Education • Sunday School • First Communion • Reconciliation Youth Ministry • Junior High Program • High School Gospel Study • Confirmation • Leadership Adult Ministry • R.C.I.A. Corpus Christi School Catholic Links |
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Pastoral Staff Map & Office Info Church History rectory@corpuschristipiedmont.org 
Some links, such as the bulletin, schedules, and printable versions, require Acrobat Reader™. Click here to download your free copy, if needed.
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R.C.I.A.
For more information, contact Raph Martin at 530-4343 ext. 16 or email him at raphm@msn.com.
Ministry offers persons seeking to become baptized Christian disciples of the Lord, Jesus Christ, an opportunity to do so over the course of one or two years. The person coordinating the R.C.I.A. ministry (R.C.I.A. Director) works with a team (R.C.I.A. Team) of parishioners who volunteer their time and talents to assist persons going through the R.C.I.A. process. In this capacity, they meet weekly with the candidates and occasionally gather with them at the time candidates are dismissed from Sunday Mass to break open the word of God which they had just heard proclaimed during the Liturgy of the Word.
Corpus Christi R.C.I.A. needs people to act as Team Members and Sponsors for the catechumenal candidates. In this capacity, the Team Members and Sponsors receive input as to the meaning of their various responsibilities, meet with the candidates at various times of their faith journey, pray with them, and witness to the community their readiness for the sacraments of initiation, viz, Baptism, Confirmation, And the Eucharist.
(Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) What it means, how it works...
One of the spiritual fruits of Vatican II was the revision of Catechumenate in what is called the order or rite of adult initiation into the Christian faith. In the early church, particularly in the 3rd to 4th centuries, the Catechumenate or period of preparing one for initiation into the Christian faith, was well developed. In the 5th century, because of political and social upheavals in areas where the Catechumenate was in vogue, the process fell into dissolution. In 1962, however, the process used in the early church, became once again, the norm for preparing adults as contemporary disciples of the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
The R.C.I.A. (as it is popularly referred to today) is more a "process" than a "program" of initiating adults into the sacramental life of the Church. It is a liturgically based process of formation -utilizing the Church's liturgical cycle and its accompanying scriptural readings proclaimed every Sunday at Mass, that forms and instructs the person, who, in faith, seeks to change his or her life in response to the gift of conversion.
For the individual, it is a period being mentored, apprenticed, and mid-wifed by the faith community which acts through its appointed representatives, i.e., catechists, sponsors, R.C.I.A. team members, priests, and other ministers.
Prior to Vatican II's restoration of the catechumenate and its promulgation by Pope Paul VI in 1972, "becoming a Catholic" was a matter of taking a quick course in the teachings of the Catholic Church. There was no set length of time, no rituals, and no community involvement in the "convert's" journey of faith. Today, all that has changed. Nowadays, as in the ancient Church for the first 400 years, a person's formation may extend or last anywhere from 1 to 3 years -with the latter being the exception.
Prior to a person's becoming a Catechumen, he or she is an Inquirer or one who explores the Christian faith from outside its community dimensions. However, once the person radically decides, through the gift of initial faith, to change his or her life God-ward or Christ-ward and enter into the community of faith and there, to live a life of commitment to Christ and the Gospel, that person begins the process of discipleship or "putting on Christ" and being His witness "to the ends of the earth." It is at this point that the various stages of the Catechumenate begin to unfold for the believer leading him or her to the waters of baptism and new life in Christ.
The R.C.I.A. also addresses itself to those Catholics who have been baptized but have not yet received the sacrament of Confirmation. It provides them an opportunity for further faith formation and understanding. These Catholics celebrate the conclusion of their sacramental initiation at the same time that the Catechumens begin theirs, viz., at the joyous rites of the Easter Vigil.
Furthermore, the R.C.I.A. provides an opportunity for Christians of other denominations who seek to "become Catholics," to be instructed and formed in an understanding of the teachings and practices of the Catholic faith community. They are welcome and invited to do so in the context of the R.C.I.A. process, sharing their faith journey in company with other Inquirers, Catechumens, or Catholics.
Let us take encouragement from the words of St. Augustine who in one of his tractates addressing the Catechumens tells us:
“We have encouraged and do encourage our brothers and sisters, the catechumens…
Let them be born again of water and the Spirit; let the Church which is pregnant with them bring them forth. They have been conceived; let them be brought forth into the light. Let them have breasts at which they may be nourished.... Let them not withdraw from their mother’s breasts.” SUMMER SPIRITUAL READING/LISTENING MATERIALS
Parishioners who would like to borrow audio-visual as well as reading materials for use during their summer vacation may find the following list helpful.
Please note: Requested materials will be left in the pick-up box located in the rectory offices.
READING MATERIALS
RCIA, JOURNEY IN FAITH
PRACTICING CATHOLIC CATHOLIC RESPONSE TO BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM WHY BE CATHOLIC? LOST AND FOUND CATHOLICS BELIEVING IN JESUS AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS
TO LIVE AS FRANCIS LIVED/AUDIO BOOK
BREAKING BREAD IN THE GOSPEL OF LUKE by Fr. Eugene Laverdiere IN THE BEGINNING: JOHN'S GOSPEL by Fr. Eugene LaVerdiere CATHOLIC MORALITY-END OF LIFE ISSUES SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY by Richard Sparks CHRISTIAN INITIATION: BAPTISM/CONFIRMATION/EUCHARIST by Fr. Kenan Osborne, OFM THEOLOGY OF MARY FOR THE 3RD MILLENNIUM by Elizabeth Johnson HERE AND NOW by Henri Nouwen |
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