Starting RCIA Classes - Your experiences

[yoshiblue]

To cut a long story short, I have been personally struggling with a couple of big areas in my life ATM, coupled with the state of the world, I am feeling a real pull to God at the moment. I feel like I need to understand my place in the world and guidance from him, if that makes sense.

I was raised a Methodist and attended weekly until the church was condemned when I was a teenager, so am already baptised and believe in God.

After talking to a couple of Catholic friends on the street, I am intrigued to find out more about our local church and RCIA classes. I'm feeling a real desire to learn everything about the church and its teachings and have ordered a book in the meantime! My friend has advised me to start to go to weekly Mass then contacting the priest when I feel comfortable to discuss.

I would really appreciate any experiences of going through this process and how you found the classes and group discussions. I believe RCIA runs from September each year and wondered if I should be able to start them this Autumn or if I needed to wait for a longer time to reflect first.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

Church organs or bodily organs? And was there any explanation given as to why, in either case, or was it just a random comment? It sounds so strange!

Bodily organs! Luckily my son didn't believe it but yes....weird random comment!

It was part of a discussion about what could happen to you if you strayed from the true path!

I’m just about to start this course OP. I’ve worked in a Catholic secondary school for 16 years now and just feel it’s the right time to convert.

Can you explain in what way he was sexist? Sometimes the church comes across that way

He often talks about women being suited to cleaning the house and how we should "know our place" within the family hierarchy. The irony is he is quite young. Our previous, elderly priest was far more modern in outlook.

I met with the priest today and he was lovely. I'm going to start the process on a 121 basis with him; he prefers to do that as everyone starts from very different places and he can tailor things accordingly.

Excited to be able to get started and will obviously be going to mass weekly too.

@yoshiblue pleased to hear you got on well today. I had my first meeting tonight and really enjoyed it. There are 7 of us in the group and all have had different experiences and reasons for being there.

@Tallulasdancingshoes oh great, I’m glad yours went well too! I’ve been asked to write my thoughts down about a specific topic ready for my first session and have a couple of books to read too.

@Fink I am on the West Coast of the USA so not sure if you know the Dominicans over here!

Anyone near Chelmsford may like to check out the Norbertines for Spiritual Direction, they are even older than the Dominicans as they have been around for over 900 yrs! I have heard great things about them
www.norbertines.org.uk/

As it happens, I do know a few @Ravenclawdropout (not well, but we have met at some events) but you're right that they wouldn't be particularly useful for offering SD in the UK.

The Norbertines in Chelmsford are lovely, I was at uni with one of them. They are moving to a new priory in a different diocese next week: Peckham in Southwark (London). They're still looking after Chelmsford until September.

@Ravenclawdropout one of the Norbatines in Chelmsford was an altar server at my parish. He is lovely And very down to earth. But his religious name just cracks me up every time I hear it.

I just love how the Catholic Church in this country is such a small world.

@Toddlerteaplease to reinforce your last point - is it fr Pius? I don't think he has the funniest name (I think fr Gildas is better, sounds like a Tolkien character), but he's young enough that you might have known him as an altar server.

@Fink yes it is. It just amuses me as it's so far removed from D from X (a very deprived area)

He was an adult when I knew hiM. It was just before he went to train for the diocese.

Gilded is a great name as well.

I know what you mean. I've known a few priests/religious from deprived areas and most people who meet them under their religious name and after a few years in Oxford have no idea what their background was, just assume they're from naice middle class families.

I know a Sister Cooey, that's probably the oddest religious name I meet semi-regularly. It's an anglicised version of an Irish name but I just think the spelling is funny, the actual name sounds fine in Irish.

@Fink, that one also made me laugh. I know sister Lucy's family very well.

I've never quite understood the taking of religious names. Because I thought God calls you by your name. And that's enough. And some of them are so pretentious!

It's historically linked to the idea of the death of the 'old man' and the birth of the 'new man' in Christ (St. Paul). Since Vatican II there's been a lot more emphasis on the vocation of all the baptised and that element of death and rebirth in baptism, so maybe that side of a religious vocation has got a bit lost in the outside world, but it's still pretty prevalent within the religious formation houses that I know.

I guess it's like how some people take a new name at baptism. You don't often see it with infant baptism, but some of the adults I've taught have changed their name at baptism, or at least hypenated it with their former name. It's much more common in some other countries. We had a priest from Cote d'Ivoire and he persuaded a lot of the African families to give their child a Christian name at baptism if the original name was from a tribal religion or Islam.

Here's a nice little explanation grom the Franciscan Friars if the Renewal why many religious communities (Monks, Friars, Nuns, Sisters) have a tradition of changing their name when they take their final vows.

media.ascensionpress.com/video/why-religious-change-names/

Aww, I miss fr Emmanuel. And his sister is great too. That got me thinking what his baptismal name was, I did use to know but I can't remember anymore.