By Mary A. Ehle
When I was asked to write an article on nurturing the catechumenate team, I thought first of those catechumenate team members with whom I shared ministry almost twenty years ago. Three of the team members had been engaged in catechumenate ministry a few years prior to my arrival. Today, they are still leaders in the initiation process. I wondered, what sustains them i n their journey and ministry on the catechumenate team? Why do they continue to serve in this ministry? Aren’t they worn out by its demands? And so, I asked. Their responses and who they are as people of faith and catechumenate servants form the basis for the insights and thoughts that follow.
Jesus, Word, and Sacrament
Mothers and fathers nurture their children from the day they are born. Friends nurture their relationships with one another. Teachers nurture students. Christians nurture one another in faith. God nurtures us in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Nurturing always involves more than one person. It suggests a deep sense of caring for another person and includes the idea that development, learning, and growing continually take place. At its heart, nurturing is providing some type of nourishment for another.
Understood this way, we can see that Jesus’s entire life was about nurturing; he nurtures others by giving of himself even to death. When he unrolled the scroll in the temple and proclaimed Isaiah’s words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, / because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. / He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives / and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, / and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19), he created an awareness that in his very being is the fulfillment of this passage. He provides the nurturing necessary to live a disciple’s life, giving us the nourishment of his Body and Blood to sustain us on the journey as his disciples who today proclaim the Gospel for the life of the world.
Jesus schooled his disciples in the ways of nurturing. They, along with the multitudes that heard Jesus’s words in his sayings and parables, witnessed his miracles and healings, and received food from his hands, learned firsthand the meaning of nurturing as he did. Jesus prepared them for a life of nurturing others in the Way. His is the model of nurturing we embrace today as we care for, form, and feed catechumenate ministers through the Word and sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
Spiritual Direction and Reflection
For many of us, catechumenate ministry is only one aspect of our busy lives. Sometimes the only down time we have is in the car as we drive to and from work, run errands, or shuttle children back and forth from their events. This time, though, also can provide an opportunity to reflect on the daily events in our lives. How do they relate to the Scriptures? To the celebration of the sacraments? How do they connect with our catechumenate ministry? Where is God in all that we do, say, and encounter in a day?
Integrating all aspects of our lives is critical to sustaining our spiritual energy as we form others in the faith we profess. If our faith practice is a Sunday-only event or a particular date and time for a catechumenate gathering, our faith and ministry will have the tendency to become merely obligations. To prevent this from happening, it is important for catechumenate team members to develop daily spiritual practices that nurture and sustain. These will differ from person to person. Some will find daily Mass, the Rosary, and weekly adoration of the Blessed Sacrament nurturing. Others will be sustained by Morning and Evening Prayer, gathering in small groups with other parishioners to reflect on the Scriptures, or setting aside time for silence each day to simply be in God’s presence. Others are wholly and completely “doers” and will be nurtured by going into the world to serve those in need of food and shelter. In doing so, these catechumenate ministers return to their initiation ministry deeply fulfilled because they have followed Jesus’s example in extending love and charity to the poor.
Where an individual catechumenate team member finds nurturing does not matter. What matters most is the spiritual support and encouragement received. One of the many roles of the director of the catechumenate process is assisting his or her team members in discovering and naming how they will be sustained in their service. Doing so will help them get in touch with their internal motivation for serving in this ministry.
Formal spiritual direction is no longer just for clergy or lay professional ministerial staff. Catechumenate ministers understand the need for ongoing spiritual formation, since that is the work they do with catechumens. Some might find having a spiritual director beneficial. Catechumenate directors can serve their teams well by leading their team to appropriate spiritual direction resources – for individual spiritual direction, group spiritual direction, or retreats.
Making The Connection
The Christian God is a relational God. This truth refers to the belief that God is Triune, Three Persons in one God. Each of the Persons is equal in divinity, distinct in identity, and yet open in relation to the other two. Through the Holy Spirit, the Triune God opens participation in his very being to all of humanity. The love that defines God’s divine essence extends to us, inviting us to participate in God’s very life.
Members of the catechumenate team serve as God’s hands, opening outward to others, inviting them to participate in and know God’s love, some for the first time. This work never ends. It can be both fulfilling and exhausting at the same time.
Yet a well-formed catechumenate team does not function in isolation from others. Here is where caring for the catechumenate team includes making sure it is connected with the entire parish community. Welcoming and forming catechumens in the faith is the responsibility of all who belong to the parish.
There are many ways to connect the catechumenate team with the wider parish community. Prayer is the primary way fully initiated members of the parish can support the catechumens and the initiation team. God hears anonymous prayers. God does not so much need to hear the names of the inquirers and catechumens and team members, as we need to say them. Knowing names personalizes the process for the parish community. It helps create a connection, a bond among people. When composing the Prayer of the Faithful, include an intercession for those seeking initiation as well as for catechumenate team members. Use names as pastorally appropriate. You might choose to include names of team members in a prayer list in the bulletin or monthly newsletter. Or, while making prayer cards with the names of the catechumens, include cards with team members’ names as well.
Opening inquiry and other catechumenate sessions to the wider community can take some of the work off the catechumenate team as they care for inquirers and catechumens. Both facilitating a catechumenate session and being available to hear others’ stories can be draining, especially for those team members who work full time and have families to nurture. While not wanting to overwhelm catechumens by outnumbering them, participation from parishioners not formally on the catechumenate team also creates connections, helping others to learn the parish’s faith story and experience how the congregation makes God’s love visible.
Many dioceses offer formation opportunities for parish catechumenate teams. Encourage the catechumenate team in your parish to take advantage of these opportunities to the extent that they are able. Meeting others engaged in the same ministry provides a means to share stories, enter into conversation, ask questions, and respond to questions.
Some parishes might struggle with the cost of sending their catechumenate team to diocesan or national events, or perhaps the distance to travel to these events is prohibitive. One of the benefits of technology is that organizations are now hosting web events. The availability of discussion forums and blogs also helps teams connect. Contact your diocese or the North American Forum on the Catechumenate (www.naforum.org) to see what offerings and possibilities for learning, spiritual growth, and discussion with other catechumenate teams are available. It’s all about creating the connections that sustain teams in God’s catechumenal work.
Catechumenate Team Meetings
Let catechumenate team meetings provide the space in which team members can freely share their faith stories. Just as we mentor catechumens to share their faith stories and teach them how to connect their lives with the Scriptures, our task as a team is to practice this when we gather. Allow plenty of time at catechumenate meetings for reflection on the Scriptures in relation to team members’ lives and in relation to how the catechumenate is progressing at the time of the meeting. The practice of lectio divina can provide a method of entering into the Scriptures at a team meeting.
The sharing of stories is the space in which the Holy Spirit lives, moves, and dwells. Here is holy and sacred ground. Even stories of challenge, conflict, and struggle are holy. No doubt a catechumenate team will face challenge, conflict, and struggle over the months and years of ministry. How this is dealt with can nurture and sustain or wound the team, causing it to dissolve.
A team rooted in God and the divine presence in Jesus Christ honored in the lives of each team member will find it easier to muddle through the challenges of this intense ministry. In any ministry, catechumenate ministry included, we will run smack dab into our human imperfections, limitations, and yes, our sinfulness. A catechumenate team that intentionally grounds itself in prayer and God’s forgiveness engages in God-sustaining practices that will not only serve to hold the team together but will allow the team to be fashioned more and more in God’s image. Catechumens will notice the model the team provides them for a life in God’s love.
The celebration of a successful inquiry session, a fruitful catechumenate session, or a deeply prayerful rite is essential to upholding the ministry of the team. This is to say that responding in joy to our good stewardship of the gifts of ministry God has given is appropriate and necessary! On the other hand, when a session does not go as planned, spend some time during the catechumenate team meeting talking about what transpired. Allow the conversation to occur in a respectful manner, resisting any desire to point fingers and assign blame. The latter are the easiest ways to discourage team members in their ministry. Many a story can be written about people leaving ministries because another parishioner accused them of doing something wrong or of not carrying out a plan the way it was intended to be put into action.
It is true that upholding the traditional ways the catechumenate team carries out its ministry is the work of the Holy Spirit. Also true is that, just as the Holy Spirit moves in the process of sharing faith stories, the Spirit also is the source of creativity and new ideas. Consider offering a time during catechumenate team meetings for sharing new ideas for the sake of improving the process. When the focus of the catechumenate team meeting remains on how the team can best lead others to God in Jesus Christ, no idea is rejected out of hand. Rather, the team evaluates each idea based on its merit in relation to Scripture, Tradition, the Church’s rites, and practical considerations of the parish community, such as scheduling.
Transition On The Catechumenate Team
Transition is a part of life. Change is reality. John Henry Cardinal Newman said it well when he stated, “to live is to have changed, and to be perfect is to change often.” Change inevitably occurs on catechumenate teams. How the team embraces change is key.
Years ago the words of a professor of pastoral theology made a profound impact on how I approached transitions in parish ministry. She emphasized that a person goes through various stages in life. There are times when he or she can give more to ministries in the Church, and other times when a person has a limited amount of time and energy to give. A person should be able to sense from other ministers the freedom to step back from serving on the catechumenate team. A person who steps back might choose to return at some point or might sense God is calling him or her to a different ministry or simply to rest in God’s presence.
When team members have the courage to speak words recognizing that they have prayerfully discerned the end of their service, accept their words with grace, the grace of Jesus Christ. Offer appreciation and gratitude for their service. Bless them. Pray with them. Nurture them as they go forth from their ministry.
In a similar manner, assist others in discerning whether God is calling them to catechumenate ministry. Do not only explain the ministry but how to discern whether the individual has the gifts for this ministry. Welcome them to a few team meetings and catechumenate sessions to experience God’s presence in those active in this process. Embrace their decision, whether or not they choose to become a part of the team. Should they decide that God desires for them to participate as a team member, know they will nurture your team with their ideas, some of which will be new to the team and some of which the team will have heard before. Refrain from immediately responding, “We’ve tried that and it hasn’t worked.” Together, prayerfully consider the actions to which God directs the team. Welcome the new team member with the same generous hospitality you extend to inquirers and catechumens at each session.
Consider using the fifth Old Testament reading from the Easter Vigil as a discernment Scripture to nurture and guide the catechumenate team through transition. The prophet Isaiah’s words resonate with those who work in initiation ministry. Often, however, we think of these words primarily in reference to the catechumens who will be baptized. But the Lord’s invitation is for all who are thirsty, to come to the life-giving waters. The Lord’s words also focus the catechumenate team on the divine words that give them life, the divine thoughts that nourish them, the Word that provides for them so that they can help others feed on it.
Or, consider collectively writing a prayer that your catechumenate team will use when it gathers. Root the prayer in Scripture passages that are particularly meaningful to the team. Focus it on the ministry of hospitality and formation God gives you. Allow the prayer to be one of both thanksgiving and petition. Catechumenate team members are often such gracious and willing servants that they forget to express their needs to God (even unexpressed, God still knows what those needs are). Perhaps choose a saint or two whose life and witness are particularly meaningful to your team and pray for their intercession.
The Happy Life
One of my catechumenate team members from twenty years ago concluded his thoughts on what sustains him in the ministry by saying his goal is to lead a meaningful, happy life in Christ Jesus. “The RCIA gives to me more than I give to it,” he said. He is not alone in saying this. Many catechumenate team members use these same words to describe their experience. Indeed, the catechumenate is a process that facilitates one’s leading a happy life – for what could provide greater happiness or be a greater act of charity than leading someone to Jesus Christ and a share in the Kingdom of God. In so doing, God nurtures us so abundantly that we come to know Jesus Christ as if we’re meeting him and being fed by him for the first time.
As catechumenate ministers, we know that all disciples are on a lifelong faith journey. We also know that Jesus always nourishes us in the Eucharist, feeding us on the journey. Its celebration never ends. Remember, in the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, there were leftovers, and not just a small amount of leftovers – twelve wicker baskets full! The life of abundance in Christ Jesus is the happy life to which God calls us as catechumenate team members and to which we have the privilege of leading others. In this life, we can “rejoice and be glad” (Matthew 5:12).
MARY A. EHLE, PhD, has a doctorate in religious studies from Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as well as degrees from St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, and St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wisconsin. She is the co-author of Workbook for Lectors 2012.
“Reprinted with permission from Catechumenate Volume 34 Number 6 November 2012”
