By Patrick Schmadeke
Evangelization in the World Today
Joyful hearts gathered in the church basement recently for our final Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA) meeting of the year. We have one more gathering next week in the form of a potluck to celebrate the newly initiated, but the curtain is closing on our time together. As it does, I find myself reflecting on the gratitude I feel for the opportunity to walk with people on their faith journey in this setting. We’ve been together every Wednesday evening since the fall. There have been several laughs, a few tears, and many back-and-forth dialogues to nurture reflection. This is the third year I’ve been on the OCIA team. Through these three years, certain patterns have come into focus.
The first generally takes the longest to integrate. OCIA is the process through which the Catholic Church welcomes new members or prepares those already baptized to come into full communion. Part of the process involves education. Culturally speaking, we are used to a classroom model of learning. In our school years we implicitly understood that the role of a teacher is to impart knowledge to students. Very naturally, we often borrow this model of relationship and use it in catechetical settings. This “sage on the stage” model of relationship, however, does more to undermine than support a journey of faith. Being formed as disciples is more like an apprenticeship than a lecture hall. Faith is less about memorizing information, and more about formation in relationship with Christ and one another. Under Pope Francis, the language of encounter and accompaniment emerged to describe how we are to share faith with one another. Our parishes must be spaces of encounter and accompaniment.
Second is the holistic formation that OCIA seeks to offer. While every parish OCIA process is unique, the four pillars of the OCIA process are consistent. Drawn from paragraph 75 of the OCIA text, they are catechesis, prayer, evangelization/social justice, and community life. A common shorthand for these four pillars is word, worship, witness, and community. As Catholics we have a tendency to lean on the first pillar, catechesis. However, unless catechesis is situated within the context of the other three pillars, OCIA becomes merely information, not faith formation. It even reduces the faith to a cognitive process, instead of a communal one.
Third is that OCIA is the responsibility of the whole parish, not just the OCIA team or the OCIA director or priest. Our small but mighty team is but an on-ramp into the faith community. As a group, we are guides and accompanists, but we are not the whole body of Christ. It is every parishioner’s responsibility to invite and welcome people into the community. This goes beyond the simple but important step of greeting newcomers, and expands to include the building of relationships over time. This can look like an invitation to coffee, your home, or to a parish event. This is an essential but often overlooked human act of building relationships.
Finally, it has become even more clear to me that Easter is the organizing experience of the Christian life. Some of the most memorable stories from the Scriptures are of the risen Christ. The stories of Mary Magdalene, Thomas, and the disciples on the road to Emmaus demonstrate a heart changed by an encounter with our Lord. The same needs to be true of community life. Welcoming the newly baptized and fully initiated at the Easter Vigil is a climactic moment for our missionary journey. Easter is a full season. It is not just Ordinary Time with white vestments and lilies (which don’t tend to last long). If the exuberance and joy of Easter doesn’t last all 50 days, then we have room for growth.
We can look forward towards Pentecost (May 24) to be instructive for the Easter season. When Cardinal Joseph Tobin visited our diocese in 2023, he noted that the miracle of Pentecost was not the ability to speak many languages. Rather, it was the understanding that took place. Pentecost reverses the dispersion of Babel; it is a bringing together. Pentecost is a reconciliation that echoes the great reconciliation of Easter. That is bound to happen when we keep Jesus at the center, and that’s what the OCIA journey does. I think it not too bold to say that our world needs more of the reconciliation that Jesus offers. What always remains is for us to live it out.
(Patrick Schmadeke is director of evangelization for the Diocese of Davenport.)
