What does Lent have to do with those becoming Catholic?

In Lent, RCIA participants move into the final period of preparation for the sacraments. They have been nourished by the graces of various liturgical Rites throughout the RCIA process, which have helped them to embrace God’s call. In Lent, God pours purifying and enlightening graces upon them, through the spiritual preparation they receive in RCIA sessions, the special Rites that mark the Sundays of Lent, and the prayers offered for them by the faithful.

On March 12th at the 5 PM Saturday Mass, we will celebrate the “First Scrutiny” with The Elect in our RCIA process. These very moving and powerful prayers ask God’s protection on those who will soon be fully initiated into the Catholic Church through the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation,and Eucharist. In the Scrutinies we pray for deliverance from sin and protection against all evil. Your prayers and support are important to the Elect who have been journeying for many months toward their Sacraments of Initiation. Please continue to hold them in your Lenten prayers.

On Sunday, March 19th at the 10 AM Mass, we will celebrate the “Second Scrutiny” with The Elect in our RCIA process. This very moving and powerful Rite asks for God’s protection on those who will soon receive the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist at the Easter Vigil. The prayers for healing and deliverance from evil contained in the Scrutinies are meant to complete the conversion of The Elect. In the Second Scrutiny, the focus is on social sin and the image of Jesus as the light of the world. Your prayers and support are important to our Elect who have been journeying for many months toward their Sacraments of Initiation. Please continue to Hold them in your Lenten prayers.

On Sunday, March 26th at the 5:30 PM Mass, we celebrate the “Third Scrutiny” with the Elect in the RCIA process.  This Lenten Ritual for the unbaptized is celebrated to deliver the Elect from the power of sin, protect them against temptation, and give them strength in Christ.  The Scrutinies are an expression of God’s transforming and saving love.  They are grace-filled encounters with God through the healing power of the Spirit.  Please continue to pray for the Elect as they journey towards their Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil.

How should the RCIA process encourage all Catholics to enter into Lent more deeply?

The Church, in the RCIA process, calls this proximate time immediately preceding initiation the period of “Purification and Enlightenment” for those in the RCIA process. That is what Lent is meant to be for all of us,who are already receiving the graces poured out through the sacraments of the Church. The Church calls us to reflect on our own baptismal graces, through prayer, penance, and alms giving. We are also called to pray for those who are approaching the Easter sacraments of initiation. We are called to examine our lives through increased prayer and penitential practice; identify sins that keep us from becoming holy; purify ourselves through the sacrament of Reconciliation; and express our gratitude to God through the love of the poor by giving from our material and spiritual bounty. Throughout Lent we enter into the Passion of Jesus Christ. We turn our hearts and minds in prayer to our own Way of the Cross, we call our own wounds by name, and we give them to the Divine Healer. When we behold the empty tomb at Easter we can be filled with joy, believing with complete certainty that those chains that bind us have been broken, and that life, not death is our birthright.

How can every Catholic make Lent a time of “purification and enlightenment”?

We can attend weekday Mass. We can reflect on the Creed, taking each statement of belief and asking ourselves if we do believe, and what it means in our everyday lives. We can go to adoration and to Confession. We can attend our parish penance service. We can pray the Stations of the Cross, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, pray the rosary. We must pray, every day. We can fast from food, TV, foul language, gossip, and the list goes on and on. We can give alms, in a genuinely sacrificial manner, to the poor. As Catholics we know all of these things. It is not a lack of “things to do” that have many of us scratching our heads on Holy Thursday wondering why Lent was really not any different for us than any other forty days throughout the year. What we lack is a conversion of the heart. We don’t have to seek far to hear God speak to us. The Church in her wisdom provides us in the Liturgy of the Word at Mass what our hearts yearn to hear. In the Lenten liturgies the Church prays what she believes and teaches, and in word and sacrament the Lord directs us toward his Divine heart.