Those present for the 9:00 liturgy on Sunday, March 10 will participate with the RCIA and CMI candidates and catechumens in a significant step in their conversion journey: the Rite of Sending for Election and Continuing Conversion. In this ritual, having heard the testimony of the sponsors, RCIA and CMI team members, and the Faith Community of St. Hubert, we will send the candidates and catechumens to these rites.
Throughout this year, these men, women, teens and children have journeyed in the St. Hubert RCIA process.
Though the RCIA and CMI process has some instructional components, it is – at heart – not an educational program, but a discernment process. Moved by an initial sense of God’s call to investigate being disciples of Jesus in the Catholic Church, the RCIA journeyers test the “fit” of Catholic teaching, way of life, and worship for them. They have deliberated with their sponsors and with the RCIA and CMI team. As they enter Lent, they have announced their desire to receive the Easter sacraments.
Have the catechumens and candidates seriously entered into the Catholic way of life? Have their lives evidenced conversion? Are they ready to be presented to the Bishop for election? The sponsors and team answer “Yes,” and will so testify during Sunday’s Rite of Sending and Continuing Conversion.
Because the sponsors and team are delegates and agents of the Faith Community of St. Hubert, the discernment process will be complete only when the community affirms the RCIA and CMI members’ readiness.
When the catechumens and candidates celebrate the Rite of Election on Sunday, March 10, they will travel that evening to the cathedral to be a part of a great throng of their peers from the many parishes of the archdiocese. All of them are entering the final period of preparation for the full initiation at the Easter Vigil.
Please feel free to take a flyer of those in RCIA and CMI at the RCIA kiosk. If you wish, you may want to write them a note. Please continue to pray for all of them on this journey of faith.