Category Archives: Conversion – Coming Home

COUNTING TO TWENTY

When you are disturbed, do not sin;
ponder it on your beds, and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the Lord. [Psalm 4:4-5]

Ten was never far enough for me. My impulse to anger being what it is.

So I counted to twenty…and twenty times I counted…until perspective set in, and clarity arrived.

Firstly, I wasn’t prepared to enter the Catholic Church, even if I had chosen to stay in the RCIA class. Given that reality, it certainly was inappropriate for me to meddle in the structure of the program, disrupting the class for those in attendance. Next year, after Easter, would be soon enough to approach the priest.

Secondly, the Church had her protocol. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And now that it had been built, Rome wouldn’t be changed in two days.

Thirdly, a few good things came out of attending the first class. I could be thankful. And I could pray for the leaders and catechumens.

Fourthly, I could take time to get my house in order. I could get my baptism information and be ready for next year.

Time passed, and with emotions finally under control, I picked up the phone, calling the Presbyterian church of my youth. A woman answered, and I set about asking her how to get a certificate of my baptism. She took my information and promised to look into it.

A few days later, she called back. She took pains to confirm with me the details of my family, my relatives and the years of our attendance. Yes, she had found the membership and baptism records for my aunt and uncle and their five sons. Apologetically, she said she had no information on my family or myself. None. Thus, there was no record of my baptism and no chance of a certificate.

It took a few minutes for this to sink in. I did my best to ask her multiple times, “Are you sure?” She was, indeed, having gone over records for more than twenty years. “Thank you,” I said and put the phone back in the charger.

I sat in silence. Puzzled. Either the church forgot to record my baptism…or I had never been baptized. How could I have been so certain I had been baptized?

Then slowly, a new realization began to develop. I had never been certain of my baptism. I had taken it for granted that I had been baptized because I had attended the church for a few years and had attended their confirmation classes for students.

What did I really remember? Candlelight midnight Christmas services. Sitting in confirmation class, second row back. Sitting in the forest under a pine tree on a high school church retreat. Driving to teen group events in the family Olds.

But I had not one iota of a memory about baptism. I remembered clearly being “not baptized,” explaining our family Presbyterian/Baptist beliefs to my junior high friends. “My parents want me to be baptized when I know what it means, and I can make the decision for myself.” If we had gone the way of the Baptist church in Tennessee, I certainly would have remembered being plunged into the water.

But we were Scottish Presbyterians. I remembered parents holding their babies over the font for a few sprinkles. But adults? I could not picture any adult ever going to the front of the church to be sprinkled. Never. Not any adult…including myself.

Had the memory grown dim? My participation in the teen youth group was short-lived. Eventually, our whole family quit attending church. A few years later, arriving on the college campus, I dispensed with faith altogether…for twenty years…God was unprovable, unbelievable and irrelevant. I had no desire or reason to remember any aspect of my former church life.

Reflecting on the faith of my parents, it started to make sense. My mother took my sister and me to church as an effort to expose us to church, a duty to educate us about what other people believed. On Sundays, my Dad stayed home. Several years of church and Christmas services had assured my Mom that she had done her duty, and we settled back into our loving secular home, respectful of believers and visiting church on occasion. But there had never been a pressing desire for my parents to seal us as children of God, followers of Christ.

I had no memory at all, ever, of being baptized. And it all made sense. Encountering God and Christ as an adult, I had simply plugged that mental hole with the assumption that I had been sprinkled many, many years ago.

First the realization dawned.

Then…the realization sank in.

Thoughts of RCIA faded, receded and disappeared.

Only one thing mattered.

I believed. I loved Jesus. He loves me.

I didn’t just want to be baptized. I thirsted for baptism. The longing for baptism took over every cell in my body.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? [Psa 42:1-2]

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NEXT: THE GIFT OF FAITH

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TEACHING TEACHERS

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My poor Dad.

I sat down for dinner, and he turned to me. “My last column in the magazine…you got me into so much trouble.” I looked at him quizzically. “You know that joke you told me.” No, I didn’t. “You remember,” he said, attempting to jog my memory.

Those who can…do.
Those who can’t…teach.
Those who can’t teach…teach teachers.

“Oh, Daddy. You can’t print that joke!” I cried out. “I’m a teacher. I get it. But you can’t expect other teachers to laugh.” And I broke out in laughter.

Teachers are a tough crowd.

At a meeting long ago, I waited for the teacher up front to get rolling. He was digging for pencils and trying to find his notes. The person next to me, rolled into her rant. “I can’t believe he didn’t come with pencils…sharpened pencils! What a waste of time…blah, blah, blah.” I asked, but I didn’t have to. Yes, she was a classroom teacher.

Teaching teachers is not for sissies. For more than ten years, I flew around the country teaching other teachers the principals of elementary math instruction. Teaching teachers…it kept me humble…or as humble as I am capable of being.

Thus…with all the humility I can possibly muster…It’s NOT that hard! Teaching RCIA is not that hard. Really!

The BASICS are basic:

Welcome everyone. Remember to tell them how freakin’ excited you are that they are here tonight.
Pray. Start the evening in prayer, showing how important Jesus is in the class and in your individual lives.
Get their names. Of course, this means that you are so freakin’ excited that they are here that you are going to get in touch with them over the next week to get to know who they are, where they are, and what they care about. Learn their names!
Ask them. Why are they here? Are they freakin’ excited about Jesus or are they just trying to make their spouse happy by joining the church? Either answer is great! It just helps to know.
Tell them upfront what the seven sacraments are and that next week you will help them fill out the enrollment form…because…now…
The most important thing for the first class is to share questions about Jesus and the Catholic Church that they hope to answer in the weeks (not years) ahead.

After that…it’s still not that hard. For one thing…you have a fully outlined curriculum, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And, after the first week, you will know the individuals in your class. Just pick the 10 essential topics of the Catechism, refer to student/participant questions and go from there.

It was absolutely inconceivable to me, after trying for months, reaching out to RCIA authorities in order to find the fountain of inspiration for RCIA, to learn that there was no fountain. In the most important job of the Church, evangelizing new believers, lambs of the flock of Christ…the manner of reaching and shepherding these lambs home was left up to chance. A compass with no needle. A sign with no arrow.

Most disconcerting was the fact that the Catholic Church, as evidenced by its Catechism of the Catholic Church leaves very little up to chance concerning the Catholic faith. It’s all spelled out. Every scintilla. Except when it comes to RCIA.

In the case of RCIA, it’s all up for grabs. Whoever shows up to teach the class, given their best effort, is left to pick and choose the goals and materials. It’s not that they are doomed to failure. It’s just that they are not guaranteed success, either.

Again, needing humility, I beg to put forward my own life experience in teaching as a vision of what is possible for RCIA.

For more than ten years, during summer breaks, I traveled around the United States to teach classes on mathematics. I was one of a cadre of over one hundred teachers from all parts of the U.S….all of us leaving our home states during the summer on a mission to change math instruction. Our parent instructor (our “Vatican pope” of math) resided in California. The math “Vatican” gave all instructors a set of lesson plans in a three-ring binder which included a list of materials required for the lessons.

We instructors learned from each other. In our first years, we traveled to observe and work with experienced leaders from California. In succeeding years, we broke off to teach in teams. And finally, secure in our abilities, we went solo. Every year, all the instructors came together at a national meeting where we discussed our individual challenges and confirmed the essentials of and improvements to the workshop.

For better or for worse, a workshop in Oregon could be expected to mirror another in Florida, each taught by two different people. If an instructor in Virginia had devised a more effective way of demonstrating a lesson on fractions, you could know with certainty that in less than a year this would be shared to all of our instructors across the U.S.

We were all on the same track, bound by our shared mission, but we were not mindless robots. Quite the converse. We devised a way of building and maintaining an effective curriculum across fifty states that was fluid, yet held in place by a core curriculum and the very real experiences of workshop leaders and our students.

To think that the Pope or his representative from the Vatican, would be unable to nix charging RCIA participants $60 just to learn about Christ and the Church…well…to think that…was unthinkable.

Of course…I am a teacher…a tough nut to crack.

Still…if a little ol’ California company founded in a basement can lead a national revolution in math instruction, it boggles the mind to think of what the Vatican could do in the wisdom of its leadership and those who love and serve the Church around the world.

Teachers teaching teachers…challenging, yes…but not impossible.

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TAKING A DEEP BREATH

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WOW!

Wow…aaah…um…aaaaaaaah.

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I have never been shy to speak my mind. This “talent” however, requires great humility…a quality I am still waiting for Jesus to install in me. (Yes, install! If He does not put it into me by His own force, I fear I will never live to see it instilled in me.)

I had walked into my first RCIA class with great anticipation. I left the class gasping for air.

Two months later, the only thing left for me to do was pray. And pray I did. I am still praying.

This is not to say that I did not think of extreme measures – buying a ticket to Rome and showing up at the Vatican, pounding on the door.

But all dramatic impulses set aside, I knew I would only stand at the Vatican door, knock politely and speak with the receptionist in the front foyer (if there is a foyer). And the Pope would either be out of town or unavailable. After all, I’m not even one of his flock – a Catholic inside the fold. And that would leave me several thousand dollars short and standing there at the desk without a ticket to enter, right where I am today…on the outside of the church.

There was only one thing worse than not being able to speak with the Pope. I had to remember that echos don’t always come back to you.

What if I managed to present my case to the Pope…

What if the Pope listened with complete attention…

What if the Pope was as kind and loving as he always is…

…and what if the Pope told me to go back to the parish and talk with my priest?

What if this really is the best that the Catholic Church can do…or that the Catholic Church is willing to do?

What if the full wisdom of the Catholic Church says that it is OK to charge a person $60 to learn about Christ and His Church? That it takes ten months to be smart enough to follow Christ?

What if the full wisdom of the Catholic Church says that for the right amount of money, for enough charitable acts of mercy, for enough months…or years waiting to enter the Church…a person can learn enough…and prove enough…to merit coming into the fold of the Great Shepherd?

What if there really is a bottom to the well at the Vatican…and…

What if the echo were to come back and knock me to my knees?

Lord, let me catch my breath…

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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THE ECHO CHAMBER

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When you shout into a well, the sound of your shout travels down the well and is reflected (echoes) off the surface of the water at the bottom of the well. If you measure the time it takes for the echo to return and if you know the speed of sound, you can calculate the depth of the well fairly accurately.

[See: DEAR DEBORAH, Page 2 – RCIA v1.2]

HOW DEEP IS THE WELL?

Echo is something you have experienced many times. In nature, if you shout into a well or a canyon, the echo comes back a moment later. But if you have not had the joy of hearing your voice come back to you across the hills, you most certainly have had the pleasure of hearing the voices of others enhanced by echos.

In music, the use of acoustic echo and reverberation effects dates back many hundreds of years. An echo chamber, a hollow enclosure used to produce reverberated sounds, is used regularly in modern recording studios. Medieval and Renaissance sacred music relied heavily on the composers’ extensive understanding and use of the complex natural reverberation and echoes inside churches and cathedrals.

One of the most unexpected echo chambers was created in the construction of the Hamilton Mausoleum.

The interior has one of the longest-lasting echos of any building in the world, a phenomenon dramatically demonstrated to visitors by slamming the entrance doors.

Another curiosity of the interior architecture is the “Whispering Wa‘s” or walls. Two people can stand at either end of one of the curved interior walls, facing away from each other into the niche of the wall, and hold a whispered conversation. The remarkable acoustics of the walls project the sound to the listener at the other side.

Echos from mountaintops and from inside cathedrals are delightful surprises.

Echos in music studios are required mechanics.

Echos in human relationships – well…they are either delightful or painful, depending on who sends the echo back to you.

And then there are the times when the well has no bottom and the echo never comes back.

My letter to Deborah was one of many attempts at shouting from the hilltop.

My first thought was to reach out to the experts of evangelization on EWTN’s program, The Journey Home. Calling their ministry, I reached one of their key people who quickly responded to my first complaint. “That’s unconscionable, charging money for the class. In my parish, we actually make gifts to class members…a Bible and rosary beads. We bring catechisms to class for them to use.” Encouraged, I asked him what I could do about it…who would set things right in my parish.

My hopes were quickly dashed. “RCIA is designed in each parish,” he said, “and it’s not the church’s responsibility to tell them how to run their program. Wait a couple of years until you are inside the church and then see what you can do in your own parish to bring about change for the parish. Or you can go to another parish.” Not the echo I had hoped for.

I called the U.S. Council of Bishops, asking for the office that deals with RCIA curricula. “That is handled in each parish. Talk to your priest. We don’t handle that here.” An echo of disengagement.

I called the parish class leader of RCIA to ask about the fee of $60 for the class. She said the fee was already part of the RCIA program when she came to the parish and had agreed to lead the class. An uninformed echo.

I called the education office for the Diocese and asked for the priest I had heard on our local radio station. The receptionist said he would love to speak to me because they had been discussing improvements in educational programs. I left a message. Anticipation of an echo.

The priest at the Diocese called me back. “That’s not my role to tell parishes how to run their programs.” No, he didn’t want to speak to me. An echo of sour notes.

I let it rest…except for the letter sent to Deborah…and another short e-mail asking help from a University Professor host on EWTN who had recently been appointed by the Vatican to help direct efforts in the New Evangelization. At least, neither Deborah nor the Professor sent me a disappointing echo.

They sent no echo at all. My efforts had gone down a well with no bottom.

_____________

*Names have been changed.

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DEAR DEBORAH, Page 2 — RCIA v.1.2

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[See DEAR DEBORAH, Page 1]

Thanks, Deborah,

Thanks for your notes about RCIA. I do think it is great to let parishes customize their programs. The people leading the program I attended are well-intentioned. But the bottom line is that their program is full of barriers for people just coming to faith in general or specifically exploring the Roman Catholic [RC] faith. The largest number of attendees that night had a vested interest in becoming Catholic…principally in joining their spouse in the Catholic faith or coming back to the church with confession and reconciliation.

Hopefully, a full picture of the first class is conveyed from this list:

The RCIA class series (September to April) costs $60. People were told they can pay all at one time or break it down in payments of $20 or so.
We were told we were required to purchase the Catholic Bible and the simplified United States Catholic Catechism for Adults [red cover], offered together by the church bookstore at $25 for both.
One woman inquired about the cost of the books: could she use her King James Bible? [KJV] She clearly didn’t have the money.
The leader did not accept the King James Bible and offered no guidance in helping the woman access the Deuterocanonical books from some other source to use in conjunction with her KJV.
No options were given [book cart or loaner for class reference] for people to use Bibles and Catechisms on loan for the RCIA program.
The RCIA program was outlined in a well-done syllabus. But the syllabus and RCIA program were presented as you might expect for a military induction class or freshman college class Intro to Faith. Emphasis was on meeting all the requirements so that you will be allowed to receive the sacraments seven months from now. Leader pointed out that people from the previous class had “failed” and did not get to receive the sacraments.
The list of “requirements” was interesting. Certainly, there were good ideas on the list. But, again, the presentation focused on the requirements. Example: “You are required to choose a saint. We’ll be talking about them later. There are some books about saints. You will have time to get familiar with a few of them in our classes.” Many in the class expressed anxiety about this, not having a familiarity with the saints or who they might want to choose.
Again, similar anxiety was expressed when we were told we were “required” to have a sponsor for entry into the church. The instructor moved on quickly, stating, “We’ll talk more about this later in the classes.”
One requirement is a 3-day Crusillo retreat on the schedule for a weekend in November. The implication is that if you do not attend the retreat, you will have “failed” to “pass” the RCIA program. There is an additional charge for the retreat.
The attendee questionnaire emphasized proof of baptism and marital history. In class, our leader said that you must be married in the RC church in order to receive sacraments at Easter. She was speaking quickly and might have been able to more fully explain this. But as she left it, that would tell me (if I didn’t know better) that I would not be able to enter the church.

In general, as an example of The New Evangelization, this RCIA class would not encourage any fledgling Christian who needs more understanding of the RC faith. Instead, it would reinforce every negative stereotype about Catholics…rules…regulations…fences and walls…buying our entry into the sacraments with class fees and “works”.

I know too many agnostics, atheists and lukewarm Protestants who would not come back to RCIA if this was their introduction to the Catholic faith.

My key question? What options exist in the Roman Catholic Church structure for constructing RCIA instruction, helping well-intentioned lay people who lead these classes to effectively meet and come alongside seekers and Protestants who are willing to explore the Catholic Church?

Hopefully, this suffices to lay out my most pressing questions. I was hoping that you, as a former Protestant, seminary graduate, and classroom teacher, might resonate with my concerns. My heart aches for people who need the RCIA program to lead/instruct them as Paul taught…as babes able only to drink milk.

Meanwhile, Catholic leaders speak of the need for all Christians to live a life of ongoing renewed conversion. What is the boundary between the introduction to learning the Catholic faith and that of the lifelong learning and ongoing conversion we all need to embrace Catholic doctrines?

Finally…RCIA, 7 months, and “requirements”…all of this before one is “permitted” to receive the sacraments…how does this comport with Acts 2:40-41:

⁴⁰With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” ⁴¹Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

The first Pope preached one day and baptized 3000. If he was able to sufficiently catechize them in 24 hours…what are we hoping to accomplish in effectively “withholding” the sacraments for seven months?

I say this all of this with the greatest love and respect for the Catholic Church and its people. Hopefully, it is clearly communicated, even if you are not in agreement with my concerns.

I will welcome any words you offer.

Sincerely,
Jane

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