Customer Reviews

RCIA Spirituality: Formation for the Catechumenate Team

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The RCIA has been a challenge to parish RCIA teams since its renewal more than twenty-five years ago. It's much too easy to continue in the mindset of "making a Catholic-Christian" rather than helping an individual make the journey of faith within the contextg of a community. Hixon's book, however, gives RCIA teams words of encouragement, wisdom, and vision, helping members of the team incorporate the wisdom of process and journey within the spiritual life for themselves, thus empowering them to assist others who are on their way. Taking the individual elements of the Rites themselves, the author offers explanations, suggestions, and caveats based on the life experiences of Jesus as well as the life experience of those who are making the journey. Discussion questions are associated with each chapter, thus enabling entire teams to journey together through the book. I highly recommend this for all RCIA team members, indeed, for any believer who wants to deepen his/her understanding of the revolutionary nature of the RCIA.

Rarely does one find a book that treats the great mysteries of initiation, the church, and the paschal mystery in such a prophetic and simple manner. Barbara Hixon has written a book for everyone on the RCIA team in which she addresses all aspects of the RCIA while inviting the team member to see their journey as important as that for those in the process. She has quite a gift for taking an event or journey from the life of Christ and situating a particular phase of the RCIA within that event. This is a wonderful, dangerous book for it will challenge how you approach the process of initiating people into the Body of Christ. Yet, it is sure worth the ride.