Catholic Graduations

In the last class I took on Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, I was taught that we shouldn’t treat the RCIA process as an academic program; rather, a way of conversion.  Yet, I do believe that taking concepts that people are familiar with to bring them to an encounter with God also has some merit.  This, Sunday we came to the closure of our RCIA year and I think I would have made my professor cringe because we had a huge graduation type celebration.  Throughout the year, we compare the process of RCIA as a type of formation leading to conversion and eventually initiation into the Catholic Church.  This initiation is like a graduation from university where after a period of study the pupils graduate to enter into a life practicing their chosen career.  In a similar way, becoming part of the Catholic community through the celebration of the Sacraments means that as fully initiated Catholics we have a life to practice and live out our faith. Though graduations are an end of a phase of life, they are also the beginning to a new adventure.  I think my professor in his fear that people will equate graduating from RCIA as an end to their Catholic life wants to eliminate such erroneous assumptions by asking that the RCIA team steer away from graduation style celebrations and allusions.  However, it depends on how you approach the subject.  Our team, for example, throughout formation shares about how we prepare ourselves much in the same way a doctor does to practice medicine.  After a doctor completes his study he can then practice medicine, his academic preparation leads him to the true objective.  In other words, we form ourselves, come to encounter God and begin our life long conversion.  Once we are part of the Catholic community our personal mission begins, we are sent forth to bring others to Christ, while continuing our own conversion.

 This year, my teammate had the great idea of making graduation caps for our students and those red caps really had our new batch of fully initiated Catholic brothers and sisters smiling.  The cap helped them realize the importance of coming to the end of meeting in our small RCIA community and now their responsibility to continue forming part of the larger community every Sunday at Mass.  The graduation style ceremony with the presentation of Sacrament Certificates took a concept that they are familiar with to send them off to spread the Good News.  I saw it in their faces and their smiles confirmed that they understood that these past nine months were indeed special.  That receiving their Sacraments and now completing this phase in their lives is truly important because now they are called to live their faith for the rest of their lives.  The only end is the formal Sunday meetings, but this graduation style celebration points to the lifelong practice receiving their Sacraments of initiation called them to.  If I have learned one thing about Catholicism is the importance of ritual to express spiritual truths, and our graduation style RCIA closure is just that.  Taking a secular ritual to point the path all of us are called to walk.  Enjoy the pics. 

They look adorable in their caps!

The Catholic Graduates.

The best RCIA team.