Saint George Catholic Church

2019-2020 Budget Report and Letter

Donation link for Elaina Wegleitner, St George parishioner who is participating in NET MINISTRIES for the next year. Thank you for your donation!

These past few weeks we’ve talked at length in the bulletin articles about the importance of evangelizing and bringing all people into the fold of the Church.  We talked about the necessity of Baptism and the importance of the teachings of the faith and the need for sponsorship and support in the process of conversion.  We’ve also spoken about how the Church lives this out in the RCIA process.  This last article will deal with what RCIA actually looks like, and will hopefully give you all a roadmap for how to evangelize.

The Church always acknowledges our freedom, and the RCIA process is no different.  Christ modeled this for us.  He issued many invitations, small steps forward, to his followers.  When John the Baptist pointed his followers to Christ and said that he was the promised Messiah, predictably a few became interested in what Jesus had to say.  When they approached him, he simply told them to “come and see” what he was about.  He didn’t give them all he had right away.  He gave them an invitation then he taught.  They spent months watching him, learning from him, seeing how he lived.  Then he would invite them again.  An example of this is when he gave the great Bread of Life discourse and many of his followers left him.  He looked to those who remained with him, his apostles, and asked what they were going to do.  Would they leave him too or continue with him?  Another time he brought them to Caesarea Philippi and asked them who they thought he was.  When Peter responded that he was the Son of God, Jesus praised him.  This was another invitation.  Would they follow the Son of God or did they just want an interesting teacher as a leader?  After he invited them, he called them to live differently.  After his Resurrection they got their marching orders - go out, teach and baptize. Convert the nations.  And lastly they received the power to go and follow Christ’s orders at Pentecost.  He didn’t leave them on their own but empowered them and elevated them with his grace.  Bit by bit they were transformed like this.

This is how RCIA is structured.  There is a period of inquiry where the candidates simply come with their questions and discuss the basics of the faith.  There are lessons and some sponsor meetings, but there is no formal declaration of conversion.  Throughout the year there are several moments of invitation.  At some point a candidate has to formally decide if they are on the route to full communion with the Church or if would they like to continue their period of inquiry.  Not everyone who enters RCIA needs to come into the Church at Easter.  But around this point the instruction becomes more practical.  They “get their marching orders”.  What is the moral life that we are called to as Catholics like?  What are the requirements to receive the sacraments?  How does a faithful Catholic pray?  As Lent begins, the candidates gather with the Bishop at the Cathedral in Sioux Falls for the Rite of Election where they declare their intent to enter the Church at a short liturgy.  During Holy Week they make their first Confessions.  All these moments build up to the climactic reception of the Sacraments of Initiation- Baptism (if they haven’t been baptized already), Confirmation, and First Communion.  This is like the moment of Pentecost where God gives the candidates the grace to live out the call from Christ to holiness.

Notice how patient this process is.  We should be patient as well as God works in the hearts of those we bring the Good News to.  So whether you’re curious as to what the RCIA process looks like for yourself or for a friend, or you’re just looking for some practical advice about how to keep the ball rolling with those you would like to  evangelize, look to Christ and his Church as a model.  Invite, befriend, instruct and discuss, call your friend forward, and then seek out those things which give you God’s grace to live out this call in the sacraments and prayer.     ~Zach Krueger