Understanding our Faith

Catechumenate for Contemporary Adults

The formal name for the catechumenate is ‘The Rite for the Christian Initiation of Adults’. The rite deliberately envisions what it is setting forth as something for people who have experience of life, who have questions about the meaning of life and about the meaning of the Christian faith.

For this reason, the catechumenate begins with a time of Inquiry – a time for asking questions, expressing one’s wonderings and even one’s doubts. If we wish the faith to take deep roots in people, there needs to be a time for all the such things to find expression. This is especially important in our times in which being religious or Christian is no longer taken for granted or is part of the culture but needs to be presented to people in such a way that it shines a light on their lives.

In last Sunday’s (6th Sunday) second reading from the first letter of St Peter, we found the statement that if people ask us the reason for the hope that is in us, we should reply to them with courtesy and respect. It is so important that we take people seriously and respect their way of seeing things if we are to enable them to come to sincere faith in Christ.

The catechumenate also calls for the involvement of the whole community of faith in this process for the same reason of bringing about an adult faith. The sharing of faith and of life experience between the catechumens and the members of the parish who are leading the catechumenate is a way of helping people to interpret their lives in the light of the gospel and to experience the ways that other people have done so.  

And of course the process is reciprocal: those accompanying the catechumens find their own faith being deepened and strengthened.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin