Church updates rites for welcoming new members at Easter

Updates to the Catholic Church’s rites for welcoming new members in the English-speaking world offer an opportunity for Catholics to focus on what it means to be an evangelizing people, according to Todd Williamson, director of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Divine Worship.

The changes come with the revised translation of the rites, part of an ongoing effort to bring liturgical translations into closer alignment with their Latin texts, Williamson explained, noting that many Catholics probably remember changes to Mass prayers that were instituted in 2011.

“It’s an important opportunity to highlight initiation ministry in the parishes,” he said. For the initiation rites, the most noticeable change might be the name itself, going from the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, widely known as RCIA, to the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, or OCIA.

That makes sense, Williamson said, as several rites are included in the process.

The new OCIA, which has been in use since December in the Archdiocese of Chicago, becomes mandatory for all dioceses on Ash Wednesday, March 5.

“The church’s vision of initiation as a process of conversion is not changing,” Williamson said. “The vision of initiation where a person is walked with, accompanied as he or she falls more in love with Jesus Christ and his church, the vision of initiation that says that conversion happens within the midst of an active worshipping community of faith — that is not changing.”

The process still includes the periods of evangelization, the catechumenate and purification and enlightenment, followed by the reception of the sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil, and concluding with the period of mystagogia, Williamson said, and none of the rites that happen in those periods have changed.

Other rites, from the baptism of children to confirmation and matrimony, have also been updated in recent years.

Some of the changes help bring clarity, Williamson said. For example, the older translation referred to people in the evangelization stage — that is, those who have not started formal instruction and formation — as “candidates,” which is the same word that was used for those already in the program who had already been baptized. Now, people in the first stage will be known as “inquirers.”

And what used to be called the “rite of acceptance to the catechumenate,” which emphasized the church’s action of accepting people, now is the “rite of entrance to the catechumenate,” emphasizing the action of those who want to become Catholic.

The Office for Divine Worship conducted 12 daylong workshops around the archdiocese, six in English and six in Spanish about the revised texts, something it has done with other updated rite as well.

“It’s always a golden opportunity to renew that ministry, to review it, to look at how we do it in our parish,” Williamson said. “So now this is a golden opportunity to reenergize initiation ministry in our parishes.”

People who have attended have generally reacted favorably, he said, because some of the changes better reflect what is really happening.

For example, what was the “presentation of the Lord’s Prayer” and the “presentation of the creed” is now the “handing on” of those prayers.

“We’re also introducing the revised OCIA through the lens of parish renewal,” Williamson said. “In the archdiocese, this is a most opportune time for a revised text for Christian initiation for adults. The principle of renewal are the exact same principles of evangelization and initiation that we are using: accompaniment, introducing people to Jesus. The spiritual renewal of Renew My Church, that is the exact same process of Christian initiation. We are actually tying these together in these workshops.”

In 1997, a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops committee studied the effects of RCIA, about a decade after it became mandatory in U.S. dioceses and more than two decades after the Archdiocese of Chicago, among others, adopted it. They found that parishes that did RCIA well were flourishing in other ways, too, Williamson said.

He hopes parishes take that to heart as they refresh their understanding of the process of Christian initiation.

“This is an opportunity to re-root our parishes in the theology and spirituality of initiation,” he said. “It’s the same as the spirit of renewal. The processes of Christian initiation, and of renewal, are so life-giving.”