Utah Vestibule is No More

The blog, not the location.

I finished it up a few weeks ago so you'll probably see an occasional church post here. Like right now.

Yesterday I ran RCIA. And it was the second successful attempt for me. My first year was rocky and awkward, and the second year I was with child and then had child. Last year I barely participated, but I made the promise to myself that I would try harder this year (meaning starting at the school year, since that's the standard, although we run year-long catechesis and do not take a summer break).

RCIA, for my non-Catholic readers, is the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. How we bring people into the church from wherever they're coming from (we've had converts from a variety of Christian denominations; in the late 80s it was all Buddhists from Vietnam, and we still have the occasional "none" box checked on the religion question).

I like converts, to any religion from any religion, except for people who join cults, of course, scary things like that. But I like talking to Gretchen on my block, for instance, who moved from Southern Baptist to Presbyterian. And I love how adult converts to Catholicism have a grasp of Catholic teaching, belief, and practice that those born Catholic simply do not. As one woman in the program right now said to me, "I would talk to my fiance about these things [he is Catholic] but he doesn't have the language to explain it."

How powerful those words are.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and RCIA have given me some of those words. Yesterday we talked about confirmation, which is a Catholic sacrament (and a sacrament in many other denominations) that completes baptism, in a way. It is an initiation sacrament that used to be integrated into baptism but separated as time went by and the Church grew geographically.

For many Catholics of recent vintage, it is seen as the end of going to PSR classes or paying attention in 8th grade religion. After confirmation, I'm done. I know I saw it that way, even as I was confirmed as an adult through RCIA (which, Sr. Mary tells me, I never should have been--I mean the RCIA part, she means I just should have been confirmed since I was a practicing active Catholic all along and knew what I was talking about). But did I? I saw it as a sort of Catholic bar mitzvah, frankly, the idea that now I've arrived. Now I'm done and ready to get on with adulthood.

But of course that's not how it goes, at least that's not how it went for me. My confirmation was a first step into a true in-depth look at my faith, what it meant to me, where I belonged, what the hell was I going to do? It was after confirmation that I almost left and joined the Friends, for instance. It was after confirmation that I got bitter and just stopped going to church, stopped praying, stopped caring. It was after confirmation that I struggled and worried and thought about my responsibilities to my children and debated my place in my parish and then played some softball and went on retreat. It was after confirmation that I found the Benedictines. Confirmation wasn't the end. "That about wraps it up for God" as it goes in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Confirmation was the beginning.

So I set down a series of photographs on the table yesterday (one of the folks in the program is an immigrant with limited language skills) and talked about olive oil. About how God has given us everything we need to receive grace. Pictures of a sheep having oil poured on its head (yes, it is done, and not for religious reasons). Of the ark and Noah and the dove. The anointing of Aaron. The baptism of Christ. Step by step through the bible. Reflecting on cleansing water of baptism followed by the seal of oil or the holy spirit (doves, olive branches, anointings).

I think it was probably good.