The Second Vatican Council asked that the catechumenate of the early Church be restored, and the resulting ritual — known in English as the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, formerly the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults — governs how an unbaptized adult becomes a Catholic. It is not a course of instruction with a ceremony at the end but a gradual journey in four periods marked by three liturgical steps. The period of evangelization and precatechumenate is a time of inquiry and first conversion. The first step, the Rite of Acceptance into the Order of Catechumens, admits inquirers as catechumens, who are henceforth joined to the Church and have a right to Christian burial. The period of the catechumenate follows, with catechesis, participation in the Liturgy of the Word, celebrations of the word, minor exorcisms and blessings, and formation in the Christian life. The second step, the Rite of Election or Enrollment of Names, is normally celebrated by the diocesan bishop at the cathedral on the First Sunday of Lent; from that point the catechumens are called the elect. The period of purification and enlightenment coincides with Lent, and its distinctive rites are the three scrutinies, celebrated at Mass on the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent. Each consists of intercessions for the elect, an exorcism prayer, and a laying on of hands, and each asks God to uncover and heal whatever is weak in them and to strengthen what is good. The Gospels proper to the scrutinies are the three great Johannine readings of Year A — the Samaritan woman at the well, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus — and these may be read in Years B and C as well when the scrutinies are celebrated, because water, light, and life are precisely what the elect are about to receive. In the same weeks the Church presents to them the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The third step is the celebration of the sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil: the elect are baptized at the font blessed in the same liturgy, confirmed by the celebrant, who has the faculty by law, and receive the Eucharist for the first time in that Mass. Baptized Christians seeking full communion with the Catholic Church are in a different situation and are never rebaptized; they make a profession of faith and are received, then confirmed and admitted to the Eucharist, and the ritual provides combined rites where a parish has both catechumens and candidates. The period of mystagogy through the Easter Season completes the process, as the newly initiated — the neophytes — deepen their understanding of the mysteries they have now received and take their place in the life and mission of the parish.

Mass structure

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Lent

• John 4:5-42
• John 9:1-41
• John 11:1-45

mass_structure