In our RCIA session this morning we were talking about this morning’s first reading, from Deuteronomy 26:4-10, where the Israelites are commanded by Moses to offer their firstfruits to the Lord as an offering in thanksgiving for all He had done.  The discussion made its way to the fact that “firstfruits” is also saying “the best of what you have” – i.e. that we give to God our best, not giving Him something inferior and keeping the best for ourselves.  From there it made its way to the point that we must not put anything – or anyone – before God.  One of our catechumen posed the concerned question (paraphrased), “does that mean we have to put God before our own family?“  I don’t think I did a sufficient job with the answer then but I’d like another crack at it here.

In short, the answer is “yes”.  But, of course, there is far more to the answer than just one word.  The short answer comes from the very first Commandment:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  You shall have no other gods before me. (Deut  5:6-7)

The word “gods” here means not only spiritual creatures, entities in ancient myths or superstitions.  It is well understood to extend to any thing or person one ahead of God in priority.  So yes, one must always put God before all else, even one’s own family.  This answer is both direct and rather shocking to those who have lived life centered around their family.  It can seem an incredibly large drop to the family from first place to second.  It can, further, seem an almost impossible request – perhaps even a devaluing of the family and an elevation of God to a position in contention with the family.  The simple answer becomes quickly not so simple.

The longer, harder-at-the-start, answer is that the question is a false dichotomy.  “How’s that?” you say.  The question proposes an either-or situation when, in fact, none exists.  Even in the case of the mother of the seven martyred brothers in 2 Maccabees 7 (if you do not know the story, it is an excellent one to read to illustrate my point) the separation between love of God and love of family is shown to be a false one.

But how is that so?  Let us first start with a short reflection:  if God is One and God is Love, then in the end there is truly only one Love of which we partake and to which we can aspire.  What does that mean in this case?  Look deeply into the question and you will find that to love your God is to love your neighbor, to love your family and to truly love your family is to love God.  So there is no true act of love for God which would ever be an act against love for one’s family.

The difficulty, if I may make the conjecture, is that we often project from the love we know – love of friends, love of family – onto the love we hope to know – the love of God, the love who is God.  This is another area where Christianity turns our process upside down.  We are asked, instead of deriving God-love from familial-love to come to a new understanding of familial love by starting at the true love of God.  It is in this complete agape – self-giving – love that we find the complete unity of love of God and love of family.  They are, indeed, the same if we allow ourselves to start with God.

A few weeks ago during one of our RCIA sessions someone asked a seemingly simple question the answer to which I hate to admit I simply don’t know.  We were discussing the Transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36) and how He talked with Moses and Elijah when someone asked, “but how did Peter, James and John know it was Moses and Elijah?  It’s not like they had pictures or anything.”

The best answers I could come up with were either that: 1) they did actually appear as they’re depicted so often with the tablets and scroll and so the Apostles were able to discern their identities from their symbols; 2) their names were brought up in the conversation they had with Jesus or 3) they asked Jesus afterwards who it was (although that leaves Peter’s build tents, “one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah” rather awkward).  So, I leave it to you, St. Blog’s, to see what kind of answers you might have.

This past weekend our RCIA catechumen (or candidates, in the case of my parish) went through their first Scrutiny, which means that we heard proclaimed the readings from Year A instead of Year B (and yes I know that candidates don’t technically go through the Scrutinies, but that’s a topic for another time).  Our RCIA director is off on vacation until just before Easter so I’m flying solo including for the Breaking Open the Word, where we go back and discuss further the readings of the day while the Liturgy of the Eucharist goes on at Mass.

Well I was all high and full of myself this past Sunday thinking I had found a great little tidbit to share, tying together the Gospel reading of the Samaritan woman at the well (from John 4)  with our topic of conversion.  It was all about how the pattern of her speech and her word choice changed as she slowly came to understand bit-by-bit who was this Man with whom she was talking.  Really good stuff, and compact enough to fit in the roughly half hour we have for the session.  That plan was working itself out just fine right until Father started his homily.  Let’s just say that Father and I must have been using some of the same sources.  My wonderful presentation went up in flames right before my eyes.  I think the folks behind me thought I had my own private stash of incense as my plans slowly smoldered.

Did I survive?  Yes.  Was the discussion as good as it could have been?  Hardly.  Did I learn a lesson?  Absolutely.  Never, ever, go into a discussion on any reading of the Bible with only one plan for what to say.  You just never know when someone else might be reading the same commentary.  To be honest, it also served as a humbling reminder that: 1) I can’t afford to be getting lazy just because I’m flying solo and 2) the depth of the Scriptures cannot be plumbed in a half hour and I do everyone a disservice by prepping only a half hour’s worth of material.  Mea culpa, my friends.  This weekend I intend to do better – at least two commentaries this time!

It is, to me, one of the greatest problems facing an RCIA program: how do you keep these neophyte Catholics close to the Church and involved in parish life once the “cycle” is complete?  It’s so easy once those heady and intense days around the reception of the Sacraments for the first time are over to slide into a complacent lifestyle, detached from the people around you and what really is the whole of the life of grace.

Fortunately the Rite itself, or more properly, the Order, has a built-in mechanism to help with this to start – the period of mystagogy.  In this period the interaction with the neophytes tends to take on a different complexion as they are engaging in a (hopefully fully) sacramental life for the first time.  It becomes, in many ways, less a purely catechetical process and one which is more close to a discussion among equals.  Yet there is still much catechesis left to be done, no matter how complete the preparation work has been.  The discussion tends to change from one of “this is what the Catholic Church teaches about X” to “this is what it is like to live a fully Catholic life, a fully sacramental life”.

Unfortunately even that period must come to an end eventually.  The Association for Catechumenal Ministry recommends “landing teams” who are tied into but separate from the RCIA team who are there to support the neophytes during their first months – their role is less catechetical and more in providing support and resources for these new Catholics.  The importance of their being separate from the RCIA team cannot be understated.  First, this helps to gently break any bond of dependence the neophyte may have on one or more members of the RCIA team.  Second, it introduces them to people without any predisposition as to their “positions” or “styles”.  Third, it encourages them to meet new people in the parish and share their faith as fully integrated members of the Body, thus making their eventual transition from evangelized to evangelizer more fluid and natural.

After they have truly established their roots in the parish some form of continuing education in the Faith is critical.  Topics learned at a surface level during RCIA must be experienced again as Catholics experiencing the full sacramental life of the Church; rough spots that have developed can be smoothed, questions that they did not recognize or did not want to recognize during the process can be addressed and they learn anew what it means to, as St. Ignatius of Loyola said, sentire cum ecclesia — to “think with the Church”.

All along this path they should be encouraged to investigate different expressions of Catholic spirituality which are within the framework of the Church.  They should be exposed broadly to the many doctors and saints of the Church and the major spiritual schools, including Franciscan, Dominican and Carmelite.  Devotions such as the Rosary and personal Holy Hours before the exposed Blessed Sacrament should be encouraged and even assisted when possible.  The great works of Spiritual and Corporal Mercy should be brought before them so that they can find ways to participate in the distribution of God’s grace.  Living the fully sacramental Catholic life means more than assisting at Mass on Sunday and signing up for one or more “ministry” – it means imbuing the other 167 hours of the week outside of Mass with the spiritual gifts they have received in the Sacraments.

These thoughts are not meant as an action plan but as a broad-scoped view of what can and must be done.  Too many times we hear people give one or another reason for falling away from the Church or returning to their previous faith tradition when in the end all it would have taken to draw them closer to the heart of the Church is a few people with some time, a plan and a minimum of resources.  Being Catholic is not merely something you do, nor is it merely something you are — it is, in the end, only when both are fused into a single-minded state that someone becomes fully Catholic, indeed, becomes fully alive.  “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” (Jn 10:10b)

With the stipulated proviso that these are only rough notes and worth the price of free it’s costing to get them, I thought I’d post the talking points I collected for our RCIA class this past weekend on the topic of Conversion and Salvation.  If you can find something in them of use, I’d be pleased as punch.  (Can punch be “pleased” given that it’s inanimate?  Just asking.)  Again, they’re talking points, not something read verbatim – I’m not someone who reads from a script or teleprompter well.  That said, it’s all below the fold, if you’re interested.