61/365 RCIA Fig Tree

I lead RCIA this weekend.

I'll go ahead and admit it: I'm terrified of this ministry.

I'm fine with kids, with Children's Liturgy and Atrium, and I could have phoned in the Old Testament class I taught 6th graders at the school, I was so relaxed with that. I don't mind teaching young folks about faith, about the Church, about what I believe and how that might apply to their lives. The Atrium is made easier by being almost completely scripted. Children's Liturgy is also rather rigid. Theology class in middle school, the way I taught it, was about learning facts and history (considering I was teaching a class that was only half Catholic, and most of the other half wasn't even Christian, this was the only decision I could make). We wrote reflection papers but it wasn't the same thing as this.

RCIA makes me really stand at the top of the stairs to my soul and think, "how Catholic am I down there, anyway?" I'm great with the searching part, with inquiry. Is this the place for you? This is why it's the place for me. But something about the catechesis part of RCIA I just have a hard time wrapping my head around. There's the Gospel and the breaking open the Word, and that works ok, but then there's catechesis afterward and the topics never seem clear unless they are all too clear...and letting things flow from the Gospel seems either stilted or too, well, reflection-paper-ish. I'm great at the lectio stage, the "what word caught you/what about the homily/what about the actions/what about your week/what about your life" part of catechesis. But the more formal, well, uh.

Hildegard wrote to me last night and gently reminded me I was in charge this week. "Take a look at the readings and see what topics might flow..." She filled me in a bit about our candidate's progress and made some suggestions. Right that minute I looked up the readings. The parable of the fig tree.

I have some tending if I'm going to bear any fruit here.